


Heartbeats

by regenderate



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2019-08-03 10:02:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 50,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16324112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regenderate/pseuds/regenderate
Summary: When Rose looked into the heart of the TARDIS, she stopped aging. Unfortunately, she doesn't realize until it's too late.Sixty years later (in Earth's timeline), eighty years later (in her timeline), or maybe a thousand years later (in the Doctor's timeline), Rose finds herself back on Earth, looking for the Doctor.(Has been expanded into a sometimes cheesy, sometimes fluffy, sometimes kind of sad longfic, featuring a number of characters from all over New Who.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to this, the first non-Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfiction I've written in about three years. It's been quite the ride.
> 
> (Chose not to use archive warnings because I couldn't decide if the metacrisis Doctor dying counted as a major character death)

Rose Tyler hadn’t aged a day. This was strange because it had been many days since she last remembered noticeably getting older; in fact, it had been years, and she still looked like she was nineteen years old. Her hair still grew (she had cut it, wondering, and it had grown back), but otherwise, nothing about her changed. 

The Doctor (or, well, he was calling himself John Smith now, but Rose had never gotten the hang of that) said that it had something to do with the way she had looked into the heart of the TARDIS. Time Lords had become Time Lords by looking into the time vortex, he said, and the heart of the TARDIS must have been the same way. 

She didn’t mind, for now. For now, she was just living her life with her husband, not aging, but she knew that after a while, he would die, and she’d have to figure out what to do. Her mum was dead, had died fairly peacefully in her sleep a few years back, and her little brother Tony was thirty or so, living a nice little life with a husband and kids. He didn’t need her, no matter how much she had babysat when he was a kid. 

And the Doctor had always been much older than she was, of course, but he hadn’t always looked it, and she didn’t like the stares she got when she walked down the street holding hands and laughing with someone who, by all rights, looked three times her age, and she didn’t like knowing that she was supposed to look that age too. 

She wondered, sometimes, what she would have looked like. She wondered if she was  _ ever _ going to look like it. Not for a long, long time, at any rate.

As the Doctor got older, they talked more about what would happen when he died. The Doctor wanted her to go back to the other universe and find a new regeneration, but she was worried about punching that hole in reality, and was thinking of trying to build a time machine of her own and traveling around this universe the way the Doctor did in the other one. The Doctor was sure that her old dimension cannon, with a few modifications, would work out all right, and they had this argument over and over until she agreed to make preparations for either option, with the understanding that in the end, what she’d do after he died was her choice.

And he grew older, and older, and she stayed nineteen, and then one day they were running around defending the Earth from a new kind of alien (because the Doctor would never dare settle down, even as a human), and he got shot with a stream of electricity right where his second heart would have been if he had one.

Turned out, getting shot in the right side of your chest wasn’t much better than getting shot in the left, and he died in the hospital, holding Rose’s hand. 

She cried at his side, she arranged a funeral (a quiet affair, just for their close friends and coworkers), and then she dried her tears and tried to decide what to do next.

She did travel around on her own for a bit, in her homegrown time machine, but it was a bit cramped and always made her kind of dizzy. Not only that, but after saving a few worlds and seeing the sights of her second universe, she realized something: she was lonely. She met new people, even traveled with a couple of them for a bit, but they were all passing through, and she missed having the Doctor around. 

She realized that the Doctor had known this would happen all along. Of course he had. He’d been doing the whole space-travel thing for years. No wonder he had wanted her to find a future regeneration. He’d known that his future self would be just as lonely as she was. And so she took her time machine back to Earth, 2068, and picked up the dimension cannon. She checked and double-checked the whole thing, the safeguards, the shields, and then she decided that she was ready.

She didn’t have anyone to say goodbye to, really. She called up Tony, but he was used to her running all over the place, and that kind of life had never appealed to him, so he wasn’t about to notice if she left. She was just his daft older/younger sister who somehow never seemed to want to settle down. The call was brief and painless, and when it was over, Rose tucked her cell phone in her pocket and calmly fired the dimension cannon.

The way it worked was simple, in the end: Rose fired the cannon, it punched its hole, and she stepped through what felt like a curtain of plastic, right into the space she had been occupying, but in the other universe. Afterwards, the hole closed up, leaving the cannon on the other side (although Rose had kept all the specs saved on the tablet in her bag, just in case). 

It was simple, except that she stepped out into empty space and immediately started falling. It took her a moment to remember that she had been on the second floor of the Torchwood headquarters, and Canary Wharf had long since been demolished in this universe, apparently. She had taken everything into account but that.

Fortunately, she was above water, and she landed a moment later in the Thames. Her feet hit the bottom and she kicked, shooting up through the water. She swam to shore and then flopped onto a concrete riverbank, feeling a little bit like a fish, with all the gasping.

Her bag had gotten soaked, of course. Good thing her tablet was waterproof. 

And that was how Rose Tyler arrived in London,  _ her _ London, because she still thought of it as hers even after she hadn’t lived there in sixty years. 

Which meant that now all she had to do was find the Doctor. 

She started by looking up strange incidents. The people here were aware of aliens, but hadn’t done any manned deep space travel yet; Rose’s universe had people traveling towards faraway galaxies, but this universe was just gearing up for it. Rose didn’t have the materials or the resources she had had before when she and the (human) Doctor had built her time machine, so she was stuck waiting on Earth. She got a job in a shop, somewhat ironically, since she couldn’t figure out how to explain her sixty years of work experience in a parallel universe to anyone meeting her nineteen-year-old face for the first time. She found a tiny apartment that she could almost afford on her wages, and she read the news sites every day, looking for a hint of an alien presence.

She found traces, red herrings, but none of them actually led her to the Doctor. She saw aliens on the streets, once in a blue moon, but she quickly learned that a few aliens actually had assimilated into Earth culture by now. 

After a while, she realized that looking alone wasn’t going to help her. She should have realized that from the beginning, probably, but she hadn’t wanted to involve others in her search. But now she remembered that the Doctor always had contacts on Earth, even when he didn’t have a companion with a family. 

She contacted UNIT, saying she was Rose Tyler, looking for the Doctor, and left out everything that had happened in between the last time UNIT in this universe had seen her and now. They replied saying that they needed proof that she was the Rose Tyler that they had in her records, so she brought her driver’s license (her old one, from this universe, back when she had  _ actually _ been nineteen) and the tablet from the other universe with all the designs that she and the human Doctor had come up with. 

She met with a general in a high-security room; she got the impression it was someone fairly high-up. She hadn’t realized that she warranted all that, but the Doctor was no laughing matter to UNIT. He was a legend.

And she was a legend, too, from what the general was saying after she realized that she was actually talking to Rose Tyler. She rambled about saving the world and walking through universes while Rose sat there with a polite smile on her face. 

Finally, she stopped, and Rose said, “So, can you help me find the Doctor?”

“Well, we’re not presently looking for him,” the general said. “We last saw him, let’s see, about five years ago, when we were fighting the Slitheen.”

“Slitheen,” Rose murmured. “They’re back?”

“Not anymore,” the general said. “Thanks to the Doctor.”

“Well, that’s what he does,” Rose said. “Mind you, I’d like to do it with him.”

“Well,” the general said, “in the meantime, would you like to work for UNIT?”

“What?”

“Your designs are brilliant,” the general said, “and you say you had help, but much of this is clearly your own work. We could use someone like you on our team.”

“I’m not so sure about the military,” Rose said. “I’m not great with taking orders.”

“We’ll be sure not to put you in a battle,” the general said. “You traveled with the Doctor. We all know what kind of a person that makes you.”

“Careful,” Rose said. “I’ll still be out there fighting.”

“We understand,” the general said. “There are a number of people here who would be nothing but honored to find a former companion of the Doctor’s here.”

And so Rose quit her job in the shop and started work at UNIT, taking apart alien technology and putting it back together into new devices. Rose liked to poke around in their archives and find names she knew-- Martha Jones, tested Project Indigo in the heat of battle, Jack Harkness, declared persona non grata in the eyes of UNIT after managing to draw classified secrets out of not one but six UNIT soldiers at a bar, all in one night. The Doctor, saving the world every few years, showing up in two different bodies one day and baffling everybody, and then Donna Noble, who saved the world and then disappeared to a regular life. 

It was scarcely a week before Rose faced her first alien invasion with UNIT. As promised, she wasn’t a soldier, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t there; she wasn’t about to miss her chance. It was a race of spiderlike aliens that had lost their home planet and were now looking for a new one, which would have been all right if they hadn’t considered humans unintelligent life forms. 

As promised, Rose didn’t fight as a soldier, but she did work with UNIT; she had more firsthand alien experience than anyone, and UNIT wasn’t about to give that up. Not that she would have let them. She had become a figure on par with the Doctor in her own right, she realized; she was technically a hundred years old at this point, with years of traveling time and space, and years of using alien technology, and years of living with a human version of the Doctor, and if she was running around telling people what to do and not following orders, well, that was just to be expected from a woman who was a hundred years old and hadn’t aged a day.

The whole time, she was looking out the corner of her eye, wondering whether the Doctor would appear.

He didn’t. Not this time.

The next alien experience they had was positive, for once. A refugee ship came to Earth, fleeing a nearby war, and UNIT intercepted it and brought the aliens in. They were kind, if scared, and UNIT managed to find a place for them. A couple more ships flew in, after that, and Rose loved watching that, knowing that in a hundred years Earth would be sending out ships full of war aid to alien fronts, and the streets would be full of all sorts of different people. This was the beginning.

A few weeks later, when people started showing up in hospitals and morgues with their eyes ripped out of their heads, Rose was less pleased. On the other hand, this was familiar to her; she had seen this happen in the parallel universe. 

“It’s a race called the Orreans,” she explained. “Coming halfway across the universe because human eyes are a delicacy for them. Like caviar. They’ve gotten tired of kidnapping us every so often and farming us on their planet; they’ve decided to skip the formalities and just take their prize.”

“That’s disgusting,” one of the UNIT soldiers said.

“So’s caviar,” Rose said, shrugging. “They live in the water, but they’re amphibious, so you’re not safe just ‘cause you’re on land. Got it?”

The soldiers moved out, patrolling the riverbanks. Rose was walking a ways behind one of them when she saw a massive, slimy, wet head emerge from the water right next to the soldier. 

“Run!” she cried.

The soldier looked around, confused, and Rose yelled, “Run,” one more time before the soldier ran. Rose turned and ran in the other direction, scrambling to get away from the river. She took out her tablet and pulled up a map, marking the spot from which the Orrean had appeared. It joined a number of dots already there to mark where victims had been found. 

Looking around, Rose realized that her surroundings were familiar. She hadn’t been here in a while, but-- this was Canary Wharf. This was where she had landed when she had first arrived.

And that’s where the aliens were.

“Oh, please, no,” she whispered. But she knew what must have happened. Somehow, these aliens had jumped through with her. They hadn’t come from their planet intending to leave eyeless humans on the streets; rather, they had found themselves stranded in a planet full of prey. 

Because they had been in the river in the parallel London all along?

Rose walked back towards the river, cautious, trying to figure out what all this meant. She had messed up, first of all, was what it meant, and she had to fix it, but it also meant that now there was a race of aliens on this planet with no home and nothing to do but harvest the eyeballs from humans whose only mistake had been wanting to take a walk along the riverbank.

She took out the sonic screwdriver that the Doctor had shown her how to make and held it out, intending to scan the river. Before she got the chance, though, she saw a something-- someone? A group of someones? She couldn’t really tell --rushing at her out of the corner of her eye, and she barely had time to put the screwdriver away before the something (definitely a group of people) got to her. Whoever was in front (in the moment, all Rose could process was a flash of blonde hair and a flapping white jacket) yelled, “What are you doing standing there? Run!” 

And a hand clamped around Rose’s, and she was running, and she was vaguely aware of a splash where she had just been standing with her screwdriver, and this felt familiar, but it couldn’t be, the Doctor had always been a man-- and the hand felt unfamiliar in hers, too small, but reassuring nonetheless, and she didn’t know who else she was running with, but she was fairly sure there were three of them, and then they all veered to the left and stopped, collapsing along the riverbank.

“Well, now, that was fun,” said the woman who’d grabbed Rose’s hand, still looking ahead of her. “Glad you could join us, whoever you--”

And here she finally turned to look at Rose properly, just as Rose was pushing her tangled hair out of her face, grinning like she’d forgotten she could. 

“--are,” the woman finished, her voice quieter. “Rose?”

And Rose hadn’t let herself hope a few short seconds earlier, but now she dared give herself that little spark of excitement.

“Doctor?” she asked, her voice breaking a little.

The Doctor grinned, and even on this new, new face, her smile was so familiar. Rose was trying to think what to say next when one of the others interrupted.

“What, do you two know each other?” She looked to be about the same age as Rose, but that wasn’t any way to judge a woman’s age, Rose knew.

“You’ve got a whole gang now,” Rose said, grinning. “You never could stay lonely for long.”

“They’re my fam,” the Doctor said. “Best friends, we are. This is Yaz, Ryan, Graham. Good people. But how’d you get here? I thought you were stuck in Pete’s World. And in-- what year is this again?”

“You said 2068,” another one of the gang-- fam, whatever-- said. Graham, if the Doctor’s frenetic pointing could be trusted. This one was older. Rose almost laughed, thinking of the Doctor traveling with two kids and an old man. 

“You’re a woman,” Rose said.

“Yeah? So are you,” the Doctor said. “And, I repeat, in the wrong universe, in 2068, looking like you’re still twenty-one. I’m not the oddity here, Rose Tyler.”

“Nineteen, actually,” Rose said. 

“What?” asked the Doctor.

“I look nineteen,” Rose said. “I stopped aging.”

“You  _ what _ ?” asked the third companion. Ryan, Rose remembered. Which made the first one Yaz, by process of elimination.

The Doctor’s eyes widened. 

“Of course!” she said. “The heart of the TARDIS! Why didn’t I think of it? Oh, Rose, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Rose said. “I got to live a nice almost-normal life with the Doctor, he died, I time traveled a bit, and then I came here.”

“How, though?” the Doctor asked. 

“Wait,” said Yaz. “You lived with the Doctor? This Doctor?”

“No,” Rose said. “Different Doctor. Human-Time-Lord metacrisis. It’s a whole thing.”

“Yeah, I caught the show,” the Doctor said, despite the fact that Rose had  _ not _ been talking to her. “How’d you get here?”

“Dimension cannon,” Rose said. “Remember? When we realized I wasn’t aging, we started making plans. The Doctor helped me.”

“ _ What _ is going on?” Ryan asked.

“Oh, come on, Ryan,” the Doctor said. “You should be used to this by now.”

“Used to not knowing what’s going on?” Ryan asked.

“Exactly,” the Doctor said. 

“There’s something else,” Rose said. “I think-- these aliens stealing eyes-- I think they hopped over with me. I think they had a ship in the river that somehow came through when I did. We put all sorts of safeguards on, honest, we had to minimize the possibility of tearing two whole universes apart--”

“You could have torn the whole  _ universe _ apart?” asked Ryan.

“It’s dangerous, travel between universes,” Rose said. “Technically impossible, but turns out not so hard if you’ve got a Time Lord metacrisis on your side.”

“Or if you’ve got a Rose Tyler on your side,” the Doctor corrected. 

“You flatter me,” Rose said. “Anyway. We put all sorts of safeguards, but we didn’t think about anything jumping on. Also didn’t think that Canary Wharf might’ve been torn down by now, fell two stories into the river.”

“Canary Wharf?” Graham asked. “You were at Canary Wharf? But there’s nothing in there.”

“You don’t remember?” the Doctor asked. “I’d put in an exception for these two, seeing as how they’d’ve been seven or eight at the time. But you’ve got no excuse.”

“What am I supposed to remember?”

“Worst day of my life, that was,” Rose said. “Daleks everywhere. Graham, you remember the ghosts?”

“Oh, I remember the ghosts,” Yaz said. “Remember, Ryan? They showed up at school and we pretended they were ancient heroes and stuff.”

“We thought they  _ were _ ancient heroes,” Ryan said. “Big metal dudes.”

“There we go,” the Doctor said. “Seven-year-olds remember, granddad doesn’t.”

“How come  _ she _ calls me granddad and you don’t?” Graham asked. Rose assumed he wasn’t talking to her.

“I’d forgotten how chaotic this can get,” Rose said.

“But you missed it!” the Doctor exclaimed.

Rose grinned.

“Yeah, I missed it,” she said.

“So,” the Doctor said. “We’ve got an alien spaceship where Canary Wharf used to be, Rose Tyler jumping across universes, people with their eyes taken out. Anything I’m missing?”

“Oh,” Rose said. “You haven’t dealt with the Orreans before, have you?”

“The what?”

“These aliens,” Rose said. “They’re called Orreans. Human eyeballs are a delicacy for them.”

“Like caviar,” the Doctor said.

“Exactly.”

“Ew,” Yaz said. 

“That’s disgusting,” Ryan said.

“So’s caviar,” the Doctor said. 

“That’s what I said,” Rose told her.

“Really?” The Doctor shook her head. “Wait. No. Getting distracted. Aliens eat human eyes. Live in the water. Anything else? Weaknesses?”

“Funnily enough,” Rose said, “they’re not big on caviar.”

“So what, are we going to rob a fancy restaurant?” Graham asked.

“Don’t give them ideas,” Yaz said.

“That was a joke,” Rose said. “I mean, it’s true, but it’s not deadly. I was thinking some sort of electric shock.”

“You want to put an electric shock through the Thames?” Yaz said.

“That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” the Doctor said. She stood up. “You coming with us, Rose?”

“Of course,” Rose said. “That’s why I’m here, you know. Had my own time machine and everything, over in Pete’s World. Traveled a bit. Wasn’t as much fun on my own.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying for years!” the Doctor said. “Oh, I missed you, Rose Tyler.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rose said. 

“Enough of that. Let’s go!” cried the Doctor, and the others stood up. They all started walking away from the river.

“So,” Rose said. “Now the initial running is out of the way. You’re a woman?”

“Yeah, I turned out all funny this time around,” the Doctor said. “I’m from the north again.”

“Well,” Rose said, slyly, “lots of planets have a north.”

“Space aliens,” Graham muttered behind them.

“Actually,” the Doctor said, “it’s just me who’s an alien. Rose is-- what are you, Rose?”

“Well, I was born here,” Rose said. “So technically not an alien, no matter what.”

“Has anyone ever told you that your life is ridiculous, Doctor?” asked Yaz.

“So’s yours, now,” the Doctor said. “Congratulations.”

“How long have you all been traveling with the Doctor?” Rose asked, laughing.

“A bit,” Graham said. “Hard to get a handle on time in the TARDIS.”

“You’re telling me,” Rose said. “Sometimes you come back and a whole year has passed.”

“That was a  _ mistake _ ,” the Doctor said.

“Where are we going?” Ryan asked.

“Somewhere with a lot of cables and electrical wiring,” the Doctor said. “Hadn’t actually thought past that yet. Any ideas?”

“We’re going to need a power source,” Rose said. 

“Right!” the Doctor exclaimed. “A power source. Let’s see. 2068. They could pack a lot of power into a little battery in 2068.”

“So we’re going to an electronics store,” Ryan said. 

“Nah,” the Doctor said. “Electronics stores don’t have real cables and batteries anymore. It’s all wireless.”

“We could try a theater,” Rose said. “Lots of theaters have all sorts of cables. Takes more electricity than your average tablet.”

“Ah, yes! A theater!” The Doctor turned to the group. “What do you think, best friends?” 

“Works for me,” Yaz said. 

“Maybe a car for the battery,” Rose added.

“Makes sense,” Graham agreed.

“Let’s go, then,” the Doctor said, her face stretching into a smile.

As they walked, Rose tried to untangle her emotions. She had quite a few of them, but confusion played a large role. She had thought about a lot of different scenarios for reuniting with the Doctor, but none of them had involved the Doctor being a woman. She was glad to see the Doctor again, but sad because she did miss  _ her _ Doctor, and now she was going to have to get to know this new one all over again (not that she wasn’t excited to get to know this new Doctor, which added one more emotion to the list). And she was worried that this Doctor wouldn’t like her as much, although of course there was no sign of that. More to the point, she was straight, and she had just spent years married to the Doctor, who had been a man, and now the Doctor was a different Doctor, and she was a woman. What did that mean for Rose?

Not that she thought the new Doctor would have anything wrong with being with a woman. She had seen the Doctor flirt with all sorts. He had once told her that he thought Shakespeare would’ve gone for him if Martha hadn’t been around.

By the time she’d swirled all this around in her head a bit, they were beneath a marquee advertising the latest hit musical, and the Doctor had her sonic out and was unlocking the doors.

“We have to be quiet,” she said. “Theater people are touchy about stealing.”

They snuck through the theater and into the tech booth. It was a tight squeeze, with all five of them; technically maybe not necessary, but no one seemed to want to be the one to wait outside.

Rose pulled out her sonic screwdriver without thinking much of it. She was halfway through detaching a wire from the wall, letting off all sorts of sparks, when she registered that the Doctor was staring at her, mouth wide open.

“You’ve got a sonic!” she exclaimed.

“Yeah,” Rose said. “The Doctor-- the  _ other _ Doctor helped me make it.”

“I made mine, too,” the Doctor said, waving hers at Rose. It was indeed different from the one Rose remembered; the tip glowed orange, not blue. Then again, Rose’s glowed purple these days.

“What happened to the old one?” Rose asked, going back to the wires. “The blue one.”

“Got eaten by a monster,” the Doctor said. “Or, something like that. Just after I regenerated.”

“Into who you are now?” Rose asked.

“No,” the Doctor said. “I had a green sonic for a while. Fell out of my pocket when I fell out of the TARDIS. I’ve had two different regenerations since you saw me last. And this one.”

“When did you fall out of the TARDIS?” Rose asked. “How long have you been this regeneration?”

“Fell out when I first regenerated,” the Doctor said. “One of those things where you’re dying and dealing with all sorts of other problems at the same time.”

“Fair enough,” Rose said.

“And I’ve been me for about…” The Doctor stopped, turned to look at her companions, and asked, “How long have we been traveling?”

“Few months?” Yaz said. 

“Few months,” the Doctor agreed. “Sounds about right.” She shrugged.

“You’re new,” Rose murmured, pulling a cable off the wall and looking past it at the Doctor. “You barely know yourself yet.”

“Yep,” the Doctor said. “I’m hoping this body lasts me a while, but somehow it never seems to.”

“Couldn’t have anything to do with the danger,” Ryan muttered.

“What, this lot knows about your regenerating?” Rose asked.

“Could hardly avoid it, when I fell out of the sky halfway through the process,” the Doctor said. “Dropped into a train car, didn’t remember my own name, had to ask them what the word for ‘tongue’ was.”

“You should’ve seen it,” Yaz said, her face halfway to a smile. “Scared us half to death.”

“I wish I had,” Rose agreed, grinning. “You know, when the Doctor regenerated and we wound up at my place, my mum gave him another man’s pajamas.”

“Really?” Yaz asked.

“Yep,” Rose said. “And even better, the bloke liked to keep fruit in his dressing gown.”

“Oh, yes!” the Doctor said. “Saved the world with a satsuma.” She straightened up, her fist full of cables. “Do you think we have enough?”

Rose picked up her batch.

“Looks like it,” she said. “You lot want to help carry?”

Yaz, Graham, and Ryan each took a few wires, and they exited the booth just in time to be spotted by a security guard.

“Hey!” the guard yelled. “What are you doing?”

“Run!” the Doctor and Rose yelled together, both grinning. They dashed out of the theater and sprinted all the way back to the riverbank, cables trailing behind them, security guards on their heels. 

Once at the riverbank, they immediately started setting things up. Graham and Ryan went to hijack a car, Rose and Yaz started arranging the cables with the ends dangling in the water, and the Doctor sat at the other end of the whole operation and started trying to figure out how to fuse all the cables together.

“Is there any specific way I should be doing this?” Yaz asked Rose, kneeling at the edge of the water, holding the end of a cable.

“Not really,” Rose said. “Just get one end in the water. Watch out for the eye-stealing alien.”

Yaz visibly shuddered. 

“Wouldn’t fancy that,” she said.

“No,” Rose siad. “I don’t think many people would.”

“So you used to travel with the Doctor?” Yaz asked.

“Yeah,” Rose said. 

“And now you’re--  _ like _ the Doctor,” Yaz continued.

“I guess I am,” Rose said. She dropped another cable into the water. 

“How’d that happen?” 

“Saved the world one too many times. Went a bit too far. I don’t age anymore. Had the heart of the TARDIS poured through me.”

“What’s that mean?” Yaz asked. 

“It’s, like, what powers the TARDIS,” Rose said. “Pure time energy.”

“Whoa. But you’re not a Time Lord.”

“Nah,” Rose said. “Only got one heart.”

“Fair enough,” Yaz said, and she focused back on her work. Rose did as well until Yaz looked up and asked, in a voice quiet enough that the Doctor wouldn’t hear, “Do you fancy her?”

“Who, the Doctor?” Rose asked. 

“Yeah,” Yaz said. “Are you two in love?”

“It’s complicated,” Rose said, thinking sadly of her metacrisis human Doctor as she dropped another wire into the river. “I was in love with him. I was married to a human version of him for years. We thought we were both going to get old together, but then I didn’t get older. He died, now I’m here.”

“Well, I’ve never seen anyone get along with the Doctor the way you do,” Yaz said. “The two of you-- you’re on the same wavelength, I can tell.”

“Thanks,” Rose said. “The only problem is, I’m straight.”

“Don’t limit yourself,” Yaz said. “Come on. I see the way you look at her.”

Done with her own work, Rose glanced twenty feet away at the Doctor, who had goggles on and was intently poking her sonic screwdriver at a clump of cables. She had to admit, there was something about her hair, and the complete elasticity of her facial expressions, and the way she hunched over the cables, every ounce of her focus directed at the metal and wires.

“Yeah,” Rose said quietly. “Can’t believe I’m a hundred years old and I never asked myself if I was into women.”

“Sounds like you didn’t have to,” Yaz said. “If you had the Doctor the whole time.”

“I guess so.”

Just then, the Doctor jumped up and yelled, “I’ve got it!” and Ryan and Graham came back in a sleek blue hovercar, hood raised. 

“Brilliant,” the Doctor said. “Let’s just get this up here--” and she hoisted her mass of joined cables up to the engine. “Rose, Yaz, get out of the way!”

Rose and Yaz both scrambled to leave the vicinity of the cables. Yaz went back up to where the car sat, but Rose stayed by the bank, wanting to see what would happen up close. She watched the cables, and watched as Ryan turned on the car, and then she watched the cables writhe with electricity.

The Thames crackled, and Rose watched, and it just so happened that she was still watching when one of the cables leapt out of the water and swung all the way over to hit Rose in the chest.

She stumbled backward, still trying to process what had happened, knowing that it was the sort of thing that probably should have killed her. Her heart was beating fast from adrenaline, and she fell to the ground, dazed.

A moment later, the car was off, the electricity had stopped, and the Doctor was running towards her, kneeling by her on the ground, asking if she was all right.

“Yeah,” Rose said. “I’m fine.” She sat up. “Why am I fine?”

“I don’t know,” the Doctor said. “Rose, I thought I was about to lose you again.”

Looking into the Doctor’s eyes, Rose saw genuine, unguarded emotion, something it had taken her years to see from the human Doctor. She saw fear, and sadness, but most importantly, she saw love, and she smiled.

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s okay, though, see? I’m alive and everything.”

The Doctor pulled Rose into a tight hug, and Rose hugged her back, feeling familiarity in the way the Doctor held her, like she was important. She smiled into the Doctor’s shoulder, and then the Doctor pulled back and kissed her, right on the mouth, right in front of everyone.

“You’re not dead!” she exclaimed.

“I’m not dead,” Rose said. She leaned back in and kissed the Doctor again, because she had gone across universes to see her, and she was a hundred years old, and she had plenty of time to fix any mistakes she made. 

And as her lips met the Doctor’s again, she felt her heart skip a beat-- a long beat-- and then her heartbeat was off, somehow, and she pulled back again and looked at the Doctor and knew the Doctor had felt it too, or at least, had felt  _ something  _ change.

“Something’s wrong,” Rose said. “I shouldn’t-- I might be having a heart attack.”

“Well, you did just get a nasty shock,” Graham said.

“No,” the Doctor said. She took Rose’s wrist in her hand. “May I?”

Rose nodded.

The Doctor dug two fingers into the inside of Rose’s wrist.

“Two heartbeats,” she said.

“That’s impossible,” Rose said.

“You looked into the heart of the TARDIS,” the Doctor said. “That’s time energy. Same time energy as created the Time Lords.”

“Same time energy,” Rose repeated with awe.

The Doctor held her hand out over Rose’s chest. 

“May I?” she asked.

Rose nodded again.

The Doctor put her hand on the left side of Rose’s sternum, where her heart was supposed to be, and then on the right side, which was definitely not supposed to have a heart.

“Two hearts,” the Doctor said. “I’d guess you grew it when you looked into the TARDIS, but it didn’t start beating for whatever reason until you got hit with an electric shock.”

“What, so, is she a Time Lord?” Ryan asked.

“Looks like it,” Rose said. 

“I think we got the alien,” Yaz said. “If anyone was wondering.”

The Doctor took both of Rose’s hands in her own.

“Rose Tyler,” she said, her earnest eyes locked with Rose’s. “I am so, so, so glad that you’re back.”

Rose smiled.

“Me, too,” she said.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a ton of really nice feedback on the first chapter of this, so thanks everyone! I've never really written for an active fandom before. This chapter is much shorter and mostly talking, but ends where I wanted it to end :-D I'll probably keep writing this until I feel like stopping, to be honest. Also, if you're on Discord and you're a WLW, you should join my Doctor Who WLW Discord server! https://discord.gg/w7J7ERD

Now that Rose had very clearly survived, and with an extra heart to boot, it was time to make sure their plan had actually worked. Rose stood up, a little unsteady, trying to get used to an extra heartbeat in her chest. 

“Are you all right?” Yaz asked, taking a step closer.

“Yeah,” Rose said. “I think so.”

“Big day,” the Doctor said.

“I’d say that about sums it up,” Graham said. 

“We have to check the river,” Rose said. “Make sure the wires worked.”

“Don’t we have to move the spaceship?” Ryan asked. “I mean, it’s going to be a bit odd when the police find the alien corpses at the bottom of the Thames.’

“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time,” the Doctor said. “Anyway, aliens are no big secret these days.”

“UNIT’ll pick it up,” Rose said. She laughed. “Doctor, did I tell you I’ve been working at UNIT? That’s how I wound up here in the first place.”

“Here, as in this universe, or here, as in at the river?” the Doctor asked, her hands drawing in the air.

“At the river,” Rose said. “I first got here, I was working in a shop, looking for alien sightings in the news, and then I figured I’d ask UNIT about it, and they asked me to work for them. Seemed more productive than going down the conspiracy theory road. Did you know some people think the Earth is completely flat?”

“They should see a real flat planet,” the Doctor said. “Much different.”

“No way,” Ryan said. “There aren’t really flat planets.”

“Pretty sure there’s just about everything,” Yaz said.

“Yep,” the Doctor said. “The universe goes on forever, after all.”

“And if you get tired of this one, you can just pop across the void to the next one over,” Rose said. “Not that I recommend it.”

“Are we going to check the river or not?” Yaz asked.

“Sure we are,” the Doctor said. She jumped right into the river, fully clothed. For a moment, she disappeared below the waves, and then her head bobbed up above the surface, her hair sopping wet, and she said, “Aren’t you coming?”

“I don’t want to get my clothes wet,” Yaz said. 

“Fair enough. How’s this: I’ll check, and you lot stay here and keep dry.”

“Works for me,” said Rose. 

“Dry is good,” Ryan agreed. “I’ll stay dry.”

“Excellent,” the Doctor said. “Back in a moment.” She took a deep breath, propelling herself up, and then she dropped down beneath the water. 

“She didn’t even take off her coat,” Graham said. 

“Probably needed something in her pockets,” Yaz said. 

They watched the bubbles above where the Doctor had disappeared for about thirty seconds before Ryan asked, “Shouldn’t she have come up by now?”

“Nah,” Rose said. “Something about Time Lord physiology. In my universe the Doctor was always complaining about it. He could never stay underwater nearly as long as he liked. Always wanted to look at the fish.”

“Your Doctor was human, then,” Graham said. “How’s that work?”

“It’s complicated,” Rose said. Her eyes were still fixed on the spot where the Doctor had been. “He sort of-- when he regenerated, his hand got cut off, and he grew a new one and kind of-- kept the old one in the TARDIS, and then he got shot and was about to regenerate and siphoned the energy into the hand, and then the hand sort of-- combined with his friend and turned into a new Doctor.”

“What about the friend?” Yaz asked.

“She was fine,” Rose said. “Got a whole bunch of the Doctor’s knowledge in the deal. I don’t know what happened to her after I left. Don’t know how long ago that was, either. About eighty years, for me.”

“So you’re a Time Lord, too,” Graham said. “How’s  _ that _ work?”

“Really not sure,” Rose said. “Pulled the TARDIS apart, used the fabric of time itself to save the Doctor, grew an extra heart. All in a day’s work.”

“And that was also--”

“Eighty years ago, yeah,” Rose said. “Or, eighty-two, I suppose.”

Graham laughed. “And you didn’t notice the extra heart until now.”

“Nope.”

“I’d be surprised if there was anything in this universe that could surprise me anymore,” Graham said.

“Sounds about right, traveling with the Doctor,” Rose said.

Just then, there was a splash and the sound of a massive gasp as the Doctor burst out of the water.

“All clear,” she said. She was treading water, somehow while holding her sonic in one hand. “Aliens got fried.” Her head turned to look at Rose. “Nice plan, Rose. Really worked.”

“Glad I could be of assistance,” Rose said. 

The Doctor swam to the riverbank and pulled herself up onto the concrete, rolling onto her back.

“That’s refreshing,” she said. “I feel very refreshed.” 

Suddenly, she jerked straight up to a sitting position. 

“I’m sorry, I promised you lot a good day of exploring 2068. What do you want to see?”

“You’re sopping wet,” said Rose, laughing. 

“That’s all right,” the Doctor said. “It’s good for me. I’ve got to be uncomfortable sometimes, or how am I going to know when I’m comfortable?”

“I think you can just tell,” Yaz said. 

“Maybe  _ you  _ can,” the Doctor replied. 

“Anyway,” Rose said, “I just meant-- who’s letting you in to see things?”

“We saw a hovercar,” Ryan said. 

“Hijacked a hovercar,” Graham added. “That’s enough excitement for me, really.”

“Yeah, well, you’re old,” Ryan said.

“All right, we’ll just go back to the TARDIS,” the Doctor said. “Oh! The TARDIS! Rose, you’re going to love it.”

“How d’you mean?” Rose asked.

“She’s redecorated! She’s really outdone herself this time.”

“The TARDIS redecorates?” Rose asked. 

“Every so often,” the Doctor said. “Whenever something goes really, really wrong.”

“How often’s that?” Rose asked, teasing.

The Doctor made a face. “Only when I can’t stop it,” she said.

“You should’ve seen all the trouble we went to to find the TARDIS earlier,” Ryan said. “A whole-- planetary race thing.”

“I said I was sorry!” The Doctor jumped up. “So, are we going? Lots to see, you know. Lots to do. Whole planets made of nothing but diamond. Although that can get dangerous.”

As the group started walking, Rose asked, “Where’d you park the TARDIS?”

“Good question,” the Doctor said. “Does anyone remember? Because I seem to have forgotten.”

“It's just a few blocks away,” Yaz said. “Doctor, how do you remember these things when you travel alone?”

“Oh, I just wander and hope I got lucky. Usually do, eventually. And every so often I remember.”

“Didn’t you get lost?” Ryan asked.

“I’m always lost,” the Doctor replied, completely serious. “Honestly, traveling with others is just about all that keeps me anchored to anything. Otherwise I just kind of float around wherever. And whenever, for that matter. That’s why I need best friends. Can’t get you people lost; you’ve got families to get back to.”

“Ryan’s actually about all the family I have left,” Graham said.

“And I’m not even family,” Ryan said. 

“Well, I’ve got a family,” Yaz said. “And they worry about me. So we can keep not getting lost, yeah?”

“My family are all dead, too, now,” Rose said quietly. She hadn’t quite realized, until that moment, how alone she was-- how alone the Doctor was, too. She supposed she’d been putting off realizing it, running around, trying to get back to the Doctor, not thinking about how her mother and father and husband were all dead.

The Doctor stopped walking, nearly causing Yaz to run right into her, and actually causing Ryan to run right into Yaz. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, completely ignoring Yaz and Ryan. “I’d forgotten.”

“It’s all right,” Rose said. “They lived happy lives. And, well, technically my brother’s still around, in the other universe, but we’re not close or anything. I was always hanging out with aliens and he just wanted to have a family.”

“You never had kids?” the Doctor asked. She started walking again.

“Wasn’t sure if I could,” Rose said. “Didn’t really want to, anyway. I was always so busy. And Mum always needed help with Tony.” She laughed. “It’s weird, isn’t it? I’m old enough to be a great-grandmother.”

“Turn left here,” Yaz said from behind.

“Thanks, Yaz,” the Doctor said, veering left. Rose jogged to catch up. 

“So what have you lot been up to?” she asked. “Traveling the stars?”

“Everywhere,” the Doctor said. “Just like always. It’s been fun.” She called over her shoulder. “Right, fam?”

“Only when you’re not calling us ‘fam,’” Ryan said. 

Rose laughed. “So, since the Doctor is clearly trying to imitate the slang of your home, you’re from, what, 2012?”

“Eighteen,” Yaz said.

“Oh, right, I keep forgetting this timeline’s behind,” Rose said. 

“Behind what?” Graham asked.

“My other universe,” Rose said.

“You’ve got  _ two universes _ ?” Graham asked. 

“Sort of,” Rose said. “It’s a long story. I’ve been living in a parallel universe for the last eighty years or so.”

“I’ll never get used to this,” said Graham with a sigh.

“Sure you will,” the Doctor said. “Humans can get used to anything. One of your best traits.”

“Not at my age we don’t,” Graham said.

“Well, you’re still here, aren’t you?” Rose asked. “How long have you been with the Doctor now?”

“Few months,” Graham said.

“Some people go home after a few days,” Rose said. “Remember Adam, Doctor?”

“That idiot,” the Doctor said. “Getting a brain-chip. None of you had better get brain-chips.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Ryan said. 

“Excellent,” the Doctor said. “Glad to hear it.”

“Take a right,” Yaz said. 

“Thanks again, Yaz!” the Doctor exclaimed, and the group turned to cross the street to the right. 

The light was red. 

“Oh. Stoplight. Hate stoplights.” The Doctor raised her sonic screwdriver. A moment later, the light was green, and they started walking again.

“Could have waited, you know,” Ryan said. “Those things never last that long.”

“Only a couple more blocks,” Yaz said. “In that park up there.”

Rose strained her eyes, trying to see. 

“Does it still look like a phone box?” she asked.

“Yep,” the Doctor said. “My phone box. Some small changes to the outside. You’ll love her.”

“Always have,” Rose said. 

“I can’t believe there’s two of you,” Yaz said.

“Nor can I,” Rose agreed.

“Fair enough,” Yaz decided. “We’re almost there. Do you really not remember, Doctor?”

“Now we’re getting closer, sure,” the Doctor said. “This park up here. I’ve got it.”

Rose glanced at Yaz and shook her head, grinning. Yaz gave her a surprised smile back.

“I saw that!” the Doctor protested. 

“Get used to it,” Rose said. 

They were a block away from the park when Rose got her first glimpse of police box blue. Suddenly, everything came rushing back to her, all of the excitement and emotion of traveling with the Doctor, and a grin rose to her face before she was aware it was coming, and she started walking faster, two steps ahead, then three, and then she back around to see the Doctor grinning back at her. 

“Come on!” she called. “You’re all so  _ slow _ .”

“Some of us have to make do with only one heart,” Ryan answered.

“Yeah, well, the Doctor’s got no excuse,” Rose said, and she ran the rest of the way to the TARDIS, leaning her back against the still-familiar wood. She could feel both of her hearts beating in her chest. Ryan was right-- two hearts made all the difference in running. No wonder the Doctor did it so often.

A couple moments later, the Doctor was at her side, taking her hand and tugging her around to the front doors. 

“Hang on,” Rose said. “The outside’s different, yeah? This panel never used to be blue.”

“Wait until you see the inside,” the Doctor said, excitement dancing in her eyes as she pushed the key into the lock.

The Doctor pushed the door open, and Rose stepped in after her. The Doctor moved aside, and Rose stepped through, a distinct feeling of familiarity and love rushing through her.

She took a few steps in, savoring each one. The TARDIS’s warm orange glow was as welcoming as ever, but it felt like more of a home now, more like something that  _ was _ rather than something that was  _ built _ . Moving around the console, she noticed a miniature model of the phone box outside, metal arcing above it; an hourglass, empty at the top; and a number of dials and levers that she was sure she remembered from before. She put her hand on the metal of the console and felt a warm vibration, one that she hadn’t thought she’d ever feel again, and one that instantly resonated within her.

_ You’re back _ , it felt like the TARDIS was saying.  _ Welcome home. _

Rose turned back to the Doctor, tears in her eyes.

“I love it,” she said.

“Knew you would,” the Doctor replied.

The others were coming in now, making themselves at home in the control room. Rose noticed that they really did look comfortable, talking to each other as they came in and gathered around the console. 

“So, where to next, Doctor?” Ryan asked.

“Not sure,” the Doctor said. “Maybe Mars. We haven’t done Mars. Rose, have you done Mars?”

“Couple times, yeah,” Rose said. “Parallel Mars, though. Completely different.”

“Good point,” the Doctor said. “Or, oh! We could meet Shakespeare. You’d like Shakespeare. He might even recognize me. Smart man, Shakespeare. Or ancient Rome! Always something to see in ancient Rome. Or we could go to Poosh, see the eight moons-- no wonder no one minded when one went missing. Anyone else have ideas?”

“Actually, Doctor,” Yaz said, “it might be nice to rest a moment. Fragile humans, remember?”

“Oh, right, fair enough,” the Doctor said. She started dashing around the console, pulling levers and pressing buttons. The TARDIS started making its noises. “I’ll just pop us into the vortex then, and everyone can get some sleep.”

“I’ll be in the game room,” Ryan said, and he crossed the control room and left through a door in the back.

“The TARDIS has a game room?” Rose asked.

“Always has, it turns out,” the Doctor said, throwing a lever. “Ryan’s the only one who’s used it, really.”

“And me,” Yaz said. She followed Ryan, calling, “Wait up! I’ve got to destroy you in hover foosball.”

Ryan’s voice came echoing back: “You wish!”

“I’m going to get a snack,” Graham said. “Anyone want anything?”

“No, thanks,” Rose said. 

Graham shrugged and left as well.

“Watch this part,” the Doctor said to Rose from across the console. Rose hurried around in time to see the Doctor’s foot stomp on a pedal, causing a biscuit to slide into a little tray in the console. The Doctor picked it up and handed it to Rose.

“That’s brilliant,” Rose said. “I love it.”

“She’s really outdone herself this time,” the Doctor said, running a hand over the console. 

“I missed the TARDIS,” Rose said. “Didn’t even realize how much until just now.”

“It does that to you,” the Doctor said. “Did I tell you how I lost it when I regenerated? Fell out, and then it dematerialized on me. That’s how I met my new best friends.”

Rose laughed.

“How’ve you been, Doctor?” she asked.

“All sorts of ways,” the Doctor said. “Wore a bowtie for a bit. Made new friends. Lost them. Traveled alone for a bit, that was nice. Bit lonely. And now I have friends again!”

“I’m glad,” Rose said. “They seem really nice.”

“They are,” the Doctor said. “They’re very good in a crisis. Don’t complain much, either. I got lucky this time.  Met them by complete coincidence.”

“Don’t you always?” Rose asked. “What happened to, um, Donna? Was that her name?”

The Doctor seemed to deflate a little, her head drooping over the TARDIS console. 

“Donna,” she said. “It was too much for her. Having me inside her head. I had to erase her memories of me.”

“But she’s all right?” Rose asked.

“She forgot everything, Rose,” the Doctor said. “All the reasons that she was important. She went right back to her old life.”

“That’s awful,” Rose said. “I’m so sorry.”

“Oh, it’s been years for me,” the Doctor said, lifting her head. “I’m all right. Got to be. Got things to do, people to see, planets to save.”

“Doesn’t mean you’re all right,” Rose said. She covered one of the Doctor’s hands with her own. “It’s okay if you’re not all right.”

The Doctor didn’t say anything. For a long moment, she just looked at Rose with sad eyes. Then she asked, “What was I like? In your world.” 

“Pretty much the same,” Rose said. “Really excited about growing older, somehow. Saw it all as a big adventure. We kept exploring and everything, mostly for Torchwood, but also for ourselves. Built a lot of stuff together, because we didn’t have the TARDIS or sonic anything, and aliens kept leaving their technology on Earth.”

“So I-- he-- was happy?” the Doctor asked.

“Yeah,” Rose said. “I mean, he was annoyed at having been left in the parallel world for a bit, but he got over it. Got used to the domestic life. Not that it was ever  _ that _ domestic. Don’t think it ever could have been, with us.”

“Not a chance,” the Doctor agreed. 

“And I think he was glad to get older,” Rose said. “He got to learn all sorts of new things. Stuff I guess I’ll never learn.”

“You’ll learn other stuff,” the Doctor said. “Stuff that he had  _ nine hundred years  _ to learn. And you still got to settle down a bit.”

“I suppose,” Rose said. “I just did it in the wrong order, didn’t I?”

“That’s the life of a Time Lord,” the Doctor said. “You get to do everything in the wrong order.”

“Am I really a Time Lord?” Rose asked. “I’d say I can’t believe it, except I’m a hundred years old with no signs of stopping.”

“Plus, two hearts,” the Doctor said. “Hang on.” She pointed to a sphere embedded in the console. “Put your hand there.”

Rose moved her hand. 

“Are you scanning me?” she asked.

“Yep,” the Doctor said. “Testing for Time Lord DNA.” She leaned away from Rose, moving around to look at the console’s screen. 

“What’s it say?” Rose asked. 

“Still testing.” The Doctor glanced at Rose. “You can take your hand off now.”

Rose lifted her hand and stepped to stand behind the Doctor, looking at the Gallifreyan symbol spinning on the screen.

“What’s it say?” she asked.

“‘Loading,’” the Doctor said. “I’ll teach you to read Gallifreyan sometime. Fun language. Loads of little dots, all waiting to be interpreted.”

The symbol disappeared and a diagram of a DNA strand materialized. It was labeled in Gallifreyan, of course.

“What’s it say now?” Rose asked. 

“Hold on,” the Doctor said, the beginnings of a smile on her face. She reached for Rose’s hand and took it, squeezing hard. “Yep. Time Lord.”

“What, really?” Rose felt herself smiling, too. “I’m a real Time Lord?”

“Yep,” the Doctor said, her smile blooming. “I hope you don’t mind, but I was hoping that’d be it.”

“Me, too,” Rose said. “I always-- always felt bad for you, in this universe, all alone. Last of your kind.”

“Not anymore,” the Doctor said. 

Rose pulled the Doctor into a hug, only halfway to hide the tears in her eyes. 

“Blimey, you’re short,” she said, suppressing a sniffle. “And  _ nice  _ hair.”

The Doctor’s arms wrapped around her and held her close for a long moment, their four hearts beating together.

“Thanks,” the Doctor said. “I made it myself.”

Rose laughed, and they separated, grinning at each other.

“So, Rose Tyler, Time Lord,” the Doctor said, “where do you want to go tomorrow?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I want you all to know that my Google Doc for this chapter was titled "chapter 2: tardis boogaloo"


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep finishing chapters late at night and wanting to post them *right then.* So... here's your 1 AM update. Also, I realized I haven't said this yet, and: I am very much an American, and I'm 100% sure that my British slang isn't all that great. I'm trying to maintain it in the characters' dialogue, at least, but I know the narration is pretty clearly American, and even in the dialogue I'm going mostly based on what characters have said in the past, not so much my knowledge of slang they might know. So apologies for any discrepancies there.

Rose and the Doctor talked in the TARDIS console room for hours, sitting on the floor and leaning against one of the glowing amber crystals. Rose was tired, but she refused to go to sleep when she had more to say to the Doctor, and it was only when she couldn’t stop yawning that the Doctor said, “You should go to bed.”

Rose didn’t protest. She didn’t even think to ask whether she had a bed on this ship anymore. She just let the Doctor pull her into a standing position and lead her by the hand into the TARDIS corridors. They went past a few doors-- “Library,” the Doctor whispered at one, and, “Yaz,” at another, and, “Game room,” at a third. They turned right (“Down the other way are Ryan and Graham,” the Doctor said, “and also the pool, most days.”) and passed a few more doors (“Zoo,” the Doctor said, “and the pool, other days, and there’s the bowling alley.”) before the Doctor stopped. 

“This one’s new,” she said. “Want to bet it’s yours?”

“Sure,” Rose said. She pressed the button next to the door and it slid up, revealing the exact room she had had last time she was in the TARDIS, all those years ago. The twin bed in the corner, covered in a pink quilt; a faux window and flowery wallpaper (even the TARDIS, it seemed, hadn’t been able to resist a good visual pun); a closet with a half-open door and a dresser, both of which, Rose knew, would hold all of the clothes she had brought with her on her journeys.

“It’s still here,” she said to the Doctor.

“The TARDIS never forgets,” the Doctor said. “She’s smart. And mine is just across the hall, so just pop on over if you need anything, all right?”

“Of course,” Rose said, turning to face the Doctor. “Thank you.”

The Doctor hugged Rose again, and Rose wanted to stay in that hug forever. This Doctor was about six inches shorter than the Doctor who had grown old with her, and Rose liked it; she didn’t get a face full of chest whenever it was time for a hug. 

“Good night,” the Doctor said, releasing her.

“Good night, Doctor,” Rose said.

The Doctor left, and Rose opened one of the dresser drawers to find her old pajamas neatly folded.

“Thanks,” she said, quietly, knowing the TARDIS would hear. She put on the pajamas and got into bed, falling asleep in moments.

She woke up some hours later to a sunny glow permeating the room, the TARDIS’s attempt at establishing regular circadian rhythms in its inhabitants. She stayed in bed for a moment, smiling to herself, and then she jumped up and went to the closet.

Every single outfit she’d brought into the TARDIS or worn during her travels was there. It was an amusing combination of clothes from all sorts of places, from the dress she’d worn to meet Charles Dickens to the Union Flag shirt she’d made the mistake of wearing in the Blitz to the lunch lady apron from that London school.

“I’m not wearing  _ that _ ,” she muttered, pushing the apron aside. She pulled out a pair of jeans and a faded purple T-shirt, adding her old blue jacket into the mix. Looking in the mirror, she felt weirdly young all of a sudden. It wasn’t that her fashion sense had changed all that much in recent years; it was just that 2068 jeans and a T-shirt were different from 2005 jeans and a T-shirt, and Rose had been a different person in 2005. 

She adjusted her shirt in the mirror and walked out, hoping she’d remember the way back to the console room. She took a left, then overshot her next turn and had to turn back, and then she took a right and found the TARDIS console. The Doctor was there already, pressing buttons and twiddling knobs, and Yaz was with her, looking interestedly over her shoulder. Rose walked in, and the Doctor looked up and immediately smiled her big, open-mouthed grin. 

“Morning,” Rose said, still standing in the doorway, shifting her weight.

“Rose!” the Doctor exclaimed. “So glad you’re up. I was showing Yaz the TARDIS.” 

“Oh, which part?” Rose asked, hurrying to stand on the Doctor’s other side. 

“Just the external sensors,” Yaz said. “And some shielding.”

“And the biscuit machine,” the Doctor said. “Important part, that.”

Yaz held up a custard cream. “Hungry?” she asked.

Rose took the biscuit and bit into it.

“We were trying to think where to go next,” the Doctor explained. “I wanted dinosaurs, but Yaz said no.”

“You can thank me when you haven’t been eaten,” Yaz said. 

“They wouldn’t eat you,” Rose said. “It’s not hard to hide from the carnivores. They’re more interested in the bigger prey.”

“That’s what I told her,” the Doctor said. “Doesn’t matter. We have all of time and space. For every thing Yaz doesn’t want to do, there are millions of things we’ll all love.”

“Spoken like a true traveler,” Rose said. “How many of those things have you done since I saw you last?”

“More than I can count,” the Doctor said.

“Care to share any of them?” Rose asked.

“All in good time,” the Doctor said. “Oh! You know what we never saw properly?”

“What?” Rose asked.

“New New York,” the Doctor said. “Been ages since I’ve been to New New York. We’ll pick a good time for it, and no hospital.”

“New New York?” Yaz asked.

“Actually the-- thirteenth New York? What was it, Doctor?”

“Fifteenth New York since the original,” the Doctor said. 

“Which makes it technically New New New New New New New New New New New New New New New York,” Rose finished. She and the Doctor exchanged a grin. “Lovely place. Can’t recommend the hospital.”

“ _ And  _ you’ve got to be careful when you go,” the Doctor said. “Went there with Martha and the whole place was a mess. Got the timing off by a few hundred years.”

“As if the TARDIS always goes where we tell it to,” Yaz said.

Rose laughed.

“Still a bit hit-or-miss, then?”

“I take offense at that,” the Doctor said. “The TARDIS has never steered us wrong.”

“1879 Scotland,” Rose said. “World War II, 1950’s London. Remember? I got my face taken off!”

“But,” the Doctor said, “we were there to help. Remember? Faces were getting taken off! The TARDIS is just taking us where it thinks we need to go.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rose said. She had missed this, hanging out in the TARDIS and tease the Doctor. “The TARDIS is always right.”

“Pretty much, yeah,” the Doctor said. 

Yaz rolled her eyes and said to Rose, “The TARDIS stopped in six different times and places trying to get us back to Sheffield.”

“And we all got to meet Rosa Parks,” the Doctor interjected. “Not to mention saved the American Civil Rights movement from a  _ horrible  _ racist.”

“Fair enough,” Yaz said. “Doesn’t explain the five  _ other _ stops, mind you.”

“Suppose not,” the Doctor said. “Still. Could’ve been important.”

“Could’ve been,” Yaz said. “Weren’t.”

“Wow,” Rose said. “Glad someone still keeps you on your toes, Doctor.”

“I’m always on my toes,” the Doctor said. “I don’t need help.”

“Then how come you take so much of it when you go places?” Yaz asked.

“I get lonely,” the Doctor said. “Really, all of time and space isn’t nearly as nice without people to share it with.”

“You got that right,” Rose said, looking up at the TARDIS’s central column. She felt the Doctor’s jacket brush against her arm, and then a warm hand enclosed her own. She turned her head to look at the Doctor, who was looking right back at her. Rose didn’t know if she’d ever get used to how honest the Doctor’s new eyes were. 

“So if I’m a Time Lord,” Rose said, eyes flicking down to the Doctor’s sleeve, “does that mean I have to wear a ridiculous long jacket now?”

“Nah,” the Doctor said. “That’s just my thing. The others like ridiculous long robes. You can do what you like.”

“I’m going to go see if Ryan and Graham are up,” Yaz said. 

“They sleep a  _ lot _ ,” the Doctor said. “Really can’t be healthy.”

“We can’t all be Time Lords,” Yaz said as she brushed past Rose and the Doctor. “I’ll be back in a moment.” She left the console room.

“She’s just going to wake them up,” the Doctor said. “Happens every time.”

“As if you’ve never wanted to do that,” Rose said. “The you in my universe used to get annoyed with me if I woke up late on a weekend, even. Liked to dangle string above my nose ‘til I sensed it and woke up. Helped that we shared a bedroom, I suppose.”

“Oh, that’s brilliant,” the Doctor said. “Can’t believe he’s giving me ideas from beyond the grave.”

“If anyone could do it, he could,” Rose said. “Or, you could.” She realized that she was still holding the Doctor’s hand. She brought both of their hands above the TARDIS console. “Are we still going to be-- you know. The way we were?” she asked.

“Don’t see why not,” the Doctor said, angling herself towards Rose. “I’ve got a new face. Thought maybe you wouldn’t like it.”

“I  _ kissed _ you,” Rose said. “What did you think that was supposed to mean?”

“You had just had a near-death experience,” the Doctor said. “I couldn’t trust it.”

“It wasn’t  _ that  _ near-death,” Rose said. “I have a whole extra heart, remember?”

The Doctor gave her a look, and Rose rolled her eyes.

“Can you trust this, then?” she asked, her voice quiet and a little vulnerable. Still holding the Doctor’s hand, she curled her other hand around one of the Doctor’s suspenders and leaned in, kissing her softly and with certainty. The Doctor didn’t miss a beat; she kissed Rose back, her free hand resting on Rose’s waist. 

“Yes,” the Doctor said, pulling away with the beginnings of an excited smile on her face. “I suppose I’ve got to now.”

Rose wanted to kiss the Doctor again, but just then she heard the sound of clapping behind her, and suddenly she was laughing as she turned around, the Doctor’s hand falling from her waist, to see Yaz, Ryan, and Graham (the latter two of whom were still in pajamas).

“Knew you’d get there,” Yaz said, stepping forward to offer Rose a high five. 

Rose slapped her hand, saying, “Doesn’t mean you had to watch.”

Yaz shrugged. “We just happened to walk into this  _ very public  _ space. Not our fault.”

“Well then!” the Doctor exclaimed from behind Rose. “New New York, anyone?”

“What?” Ryan asked.

“It’s, like, the seventeenth New York since the original city,” Yaz said to him.

“Fifteenth,” the Doctor and Rose said together. Rose turned back to face her and they exchanged an exhilarated look before the Doctor ran halfway around the console, pulling a giant lever.

“Well,” Graham said, “this is very exciting and all, but I’m going to go put on real clothes.”

“I’m with you,” Ryan said. “Don’t leave without us.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” the Doctor said, still rushing about. “Rose, can you get that blue button?”

Rose looked at the console, searching for a blue button. 

“This one?” she asked, putting her hand on it.

The Doctor’s head poked around the console. 

“Yep,” she said. “That’s the one.”

Rose pressed it, and the TARDIS started making its noise. Even though she had just heard it the day before, Rose was surprised at how much the noise felt like home to her, more so than anything in London had. She felt a pang of sadness at the fact that the Doctor in her world would never hear that noise again, that he had known that before he had set foot in her universe.

(Technically, she had known it too; she just had been wrong.)

The sadness mixed with excitement as the TARDIS landed and the Doctor threw the doors open, exclaiming, “New New New New New New New New New New New New New New New York!”

Rose came up behind her to a sight half-remembered, of green grass waving in the breeze, shining buildings on the horizon.

“How long is this to when we came?” she asked.

“About twenty years before,” the Doctor said. “Had to make sure we wouldn’t overlap.”

“And this is where the TARDIS decided to drop us?” Rose asked, smiling.

“Nah,” the Doctor said. “I chose this one. The TARDIS was nice about it.”

Rose heard footsteps behind her, and then Ryan’s voice saying, “We’re back.”

“Brilliant,” the Doctor said. “Let’s go, yeah?”

Without waiting for a response, she stepped out of the TARDIS, and Rose followed.

“We’d better find some food,” she said. “I missed breakfast.”

“Oh, you’re as bad as Graham,” the Doctor said.

“I take offense at that,” Graham said.

“Still,” the Doctor said. “New New York. Pretty good place to get--” she checked her watch-- “lunch.”

They crossed the bridge into the city. Half an hour later, they were sitting outside a cafe, watching people (and aliens) pass by. 

“So,” Graham said to Rose and the Doctor, “how do you two know each other?”

“That’s complicated,” the Doctor said.

“No, I don’t mean the whole parallel universe thing,” Graham said. “I mean to begin with.”

“Still complicated,” the Doctor said.

“Saved me from living plastic creatures,” Rose said.

“Not that complicated, then,” Ryan said.

“And then she saved the world,” the Doctor said. 

“Must be Tuesday,” Ryan said. “Still not complicated.”

The Doctor stuck her tongue out, her face scrunching up.

“Wednesday, actually,” she said.

“And it was Thursday when we met,” Rose said. “Anyway, I want to hear how you all started traveling with the Doctor.”

“She crashed into our train, didn’t she?” Graham said. “There was a big  _ thing  _ attacking us and she came right through the roof.”

“Saved all of us from the big thing,” Yaz said, “took us on this whole quest to stop it, and then asked us to help her find her TARDIS, which turned into all of us, floating in space, completely untethered. We were lucky there were spaceships going by.”

“How’d you survive?” Rose asked.

“We weren’t out there very long,” the Doctor said. “Anyone can survive a few seconds.”

“It was definitely longer than a few seconds,” Yaz said.

“And I programmed some safeguards into the teleport we made,” the Doctor said. “Oxygen fields.”

“That explains a lot,” Graham said. 

The Doctor pushed her chair back. “Well, we’re alive now,” she said. “And we can’t come to New New York and not explore anything. Come on.”

“Don’t we have to pay for our food?” Yaz asked. 

The Doctor buzzed her sonic screwdriver at one of the serverbots.

“All taken care of,” she said. “I love technologically advanced ages. So easy to hack.”

Before she met the Doctor, all those years ago, Rose’s idea of “exploring” had been walking down a city street, maybe poking her head into some shops. Now, after eighty years of different forms of travel both with and without the Doctor, she was completely ready to spend all of her time chasing after her, running through every back alley and talking to every stranger on the street. 

The Doctor did not disappoint. The minute they left the restaurant, she said, “Now, if we get separated, we meet back at the TARDIS in three hours. Agreed?”

“What if someone doesn’t show?” Ryan asked.

“Then the others get to go looking for them,” the Doctor said, sounding positively thrilled. “Now I’m going to see what’s over there.” She pointed across the street at a tiny shop. “Who’s with me?”

They spent the day wandering the city, popping in and out of shops, running through alleys, talking to plenty of strangers. Fortunately, no deep, sinister threats came up; just a moderately unpopular mayor and at least a couple of black market drugs. 

“That’ll turn dangerous in about thirty years,” the Doctor said to Rose after someone tried to sell them a “mood patch.”

By evening, they were in a New Earth dance club (Ryan’s idea), where there were all sorts of people, ranging from cat-people to blue people to just regular Earth people. The lights were dim and the music was loud, and Yaz and Ryan were dancing while Graham was sitting in the corner looking a little bit peeved, and Rose was drinking something  _ incredibly  _ alien in a shade of turquoise that she hadn’t known could be ingested, feeling a little bit giddy. The Doctor was sitting next to her, hunched down so that her own blue drink was eye level, poking at it with her straw.

“I don’t trust this,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over the music. 

“Don’t drink it then,” Rose replied, laughing. “Can’t be the worst thing you’ve had.”

“Lemonade,” the Doctor said.

“What?” Rose asked.

“Worst thing I’ve had in this body. Used to love it.”

Rose laughed again. 

“C’mon,” she said, holding out her hand. “Let’s dance.”

To her surprise, the Doctor sat up immediately, taking Rose’s hand and sliding off her stool.

“Let’s,” she said. “I don’t know if I can dance yet. I couldn’t, last body. Too grumpy. And before that I danced like a little kid.”

“Only one way to find out,” Rose said, leading the Doctor to the dance floor. 

The Doctor didn’t dance like a little kid. She didn’t exactly dance like anything Rose had seen before; she just moved her body to the music, her hair flying all over the place, her jacket flapping. Rose loved it, even as she engaged in her more subdued jumping-up-and-down-a-lot sort of dance. 

A slow song came on, and Rose looked at the Doctor, not sure whether she’d want to stay. But the Doctor offered Rose her arms, and Rose stepped closer, putting one hand on the Doctor’s shoulder, and using her other hand to entangle her fingers with the Doctor’s. The Doctor’s hair was still in her face, and Rose brushed it out of the way, tucking it behind the Doctor’s ear.

“You got lucky this time ‘round,” Rose said, stepping in time with the Doctor. “With the whole new face thing.”

“You like it?” the Doctor asked.

“I really do,” Rose said. 

“I was worried you wouldn’t,” the Doctor said. “When I realized it was you. My first thought was that you wouldn’t like me in this body.”

“Yeah, well, I was worried for a moment too,” Rose said. “And it’s been, what, a thousand years for you? You could’ve forgotten about me entirely.”

“Never,” the Doctor said. “I’d never forget you, Rose Tyler.”

Rose smiled.

“I’ve still got to get to know you, mind,” she said. “We can’t just-- pick up where we left off.”

“No,” the Doctor said. “That was much too long ago. You’ve had a whole life since then.”

“So have you,” Rose said. “Two of them, sounds like.”

“So we’re in agreement,” the Doctor said. “Take it slow, get to know each other again, have a grand old time, traveling all over.”

Rose smiled. 

“Sounds about right,” she said. She rested her head on the Doctor’s shoulder and let the music carry her.

The song was just coming to a close when she heard a distinctly American voice next to her.

“Is that  _ Rose Tyler _ ?” 

She turned her head and opened her eyes, her hand sliding off the Doctor’s shoulder, to see Captain Jack Harkness, standing on the side of the dance floor. She glanced at the Doctor, who looked just as surprised as she felt, and then back at Jack.

“Rose Tyler indeed, and dancing with a woman, no less,” Jack said. “I knew you had it in you.”

“Captain Jack,” Rose said. “Good to see you haven’t changed a bit.”

“Where’d you come from?” Jack asked. “Last I heard, you were stuck in a parallel universe with that metacrisis Doctor.”

“I came back,” Rose said. “Doctor died, I was bored.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said. “How long ago?”

“‘Bout 20 years, for me,” Rose said.

“No way,” Jack said. “You’re not--”

“Time Lord,” Rose said. “I stopped aging after I looked into the TARDIS. Trouble was, I didn’t notice until it was way too late.”

“So have you found the Doctor?” Jack asked. “Or have you just been running around seducing women in outer space clubs?”

Rose glanced at the Doctor, who was looking open-mouthed at Jack. 

“Three guesses,” Rose said. “First two don’t count.”

“No way,” Jack said. “Doctor?”

“One and the same,” the Doctor said. She gave a little wave and a smile. 

“No  _ way _ ,” repeated Jack. “How long?”

“Few months,” the Doctor said. “Do you like it?”

“Always, Doctor,” Jack said. He winked. 

Just then, Graham approached them, saying, “Do you two know this man? Because he was just flirting with me.”

“He does that to everyone,” Rose said. “Putting the moves on the Doctor right now.”

“What,  _ you’re _ traveling with the Doctor?” Jack asked. “Gone are the days of the nineteen-year-old girls, then.”

“We’ve got one of those, too,” Graham said. “And my grandson. And Rose, whatever she is.”

“Just nineteen in the face,” Rose said cheerfully. 

“So, is he coming with us too?” Graham asked.

“Didn’t think he’d want to,” the Doctor said. “Still got that vortex manipulator?”

“Cheap and nasty time travel,” Jack said, holding up his wrist. “Isn’t that what you said, Doctor?”

“Suppose I did,” the Doctor said. “Well, you’re welcome in the TARDIS. Might get a bit crowded. Hasn’t had that many people in it since you saw me last.”

“How long’s that, then?” Jack asked.

“Thousand years,” Doctor said. “Give or take.”

“Well,” Jack said, “there’s something I could use your help with back home.”

“Now he gets to it,” Rose said to the Doctor. To Jack, she said, “If it’s stealing human eyeballs, we already took care of it.”

“Nothing like that,” Jack says, “although can I say, ew?”

“When are you these days?” the Doctor asked.

“About 2022,” Jack said. 

“Oh, never mind, then,” Rose said. 

“Thanks for the glimpse into the future,” Jack told her. “Anyway, we’ve got something else. It’s invisible.”

“Invisible?” the Doctor asked. “Excellent. Come on, Rose, Graham. We’re going to help Jack.”

“Not without sleeping first, I hope,” Graham said.

“Well, everyone needs their rest, I suppose,” the Doctor said. “Where are Yaz and Ryan?”

“Chatting up aliens, I expect,” Graham said. He cast his eyes about. “See, they’re over there.”

The Doctor turned and jumped up and down, waving her hand in the air until Yaz and Ryan stopped talking to the strangers at the bar and looked at her through the crowd. She gestured at them to come closer, and they did.

“What’s going on?” Ryan asked.

“Yaz, Ryan,” she said, “meet Captain Jack Harkness.”

“And who might you be?” Jack asked, raising his eyebrows.

“I literally just told you,” the Doctor said. “Anyway, gang, Jack needs help, and we’re going to help him.”

“Sounds good to me,” Ryan said. “We always help, right, Doctor?”

“Always,” the Doctor said.

They left the club together, breathing in the cool night New New York air. Rose was still holding the Doctor’s hand, something that she didn’t dare bring to the Doctor’s attention for fear that she might let go.

They walked through the city and over the bridge and through the grass to the TARDIS, at which point everyone went their separate ways. The Doctor gave Jack directions to a room of his own, and he saluted as he walked off into the depths of the TARDIS; Ryan went off to the game room again; and Yaz and Graham both went to bed, scoffing at Ryan’s tireless game-playing.

And Rose and the Doctor were left alone in the console room again, neither of them particularly eager to leave each other’s presence.

“Come to bed with me,” the Doctor said suddenly.

Rose started. “I’m not sure-- it’s a bit early for that, don’t you think?”.

“Oh, no, I don’t mean anything--” the Doctor stopped in her tracks, looking at Rose intently. “I just get lonely, that’s all, and I want to talk to you, like you said, get to know you again, and it’s easier to talk to you if we’re in the same room, and besides which, there’s not really anywhere to sit in here anymore--”

“Oh, all right, then,” Rose said. She kissed the Doctor on the cheek. “Lead me to your chambers.”

The Doctor’s eyes lit up, and she took Rose by the hand, pulling her through the corridors. 

“Hang on,” Rose said as they approached the Doctor’s room. “Let me get into my pajamas. If we’re doing this, we’re doing this properly.”

“Fair enough,” the Doctor said, dropping Rose’s hand. “See you in a few, then.”

Rose let herself into her own room and quickly changed into her pajamas. She looked at herself in the mirror and smoothed down her hair a bit, and then she stepped out of her room and, hesitant, gave the Doctor’s door three soft knocks.

The door slid open, and the Doctor stood in front of her, wearing deep blue pajamas, covered in stars. Rose laughed.

“Of course you wear the stars on you when you sleep,” she said, stepping into the room. It was just messy as it had always been, with books scattered all over, covering the bed, and spare machine parts, too, filling in the gaps between the books, which hadn’t been there when Rose had seen this room for the first time. There was a closet, and when Rose looked up, she saw that the ceiling was covered in stars as well. 

“Never stop looking at the stars, Rose,” the Doctor said, looking up, an enraptured look on her face.

“Never will,” Rose said. She rocked on the balls of her feet, unsure of what to do now.

The Doctor looked around, seemed to notice the mess, and jumped into action, standing on the ornate wooden bed and lifting the patchwork quilt up so that everything fell to the floor on the other side. She bounced to a sitting position and said, “That’s better.”

Laughing, Rose sat down next to her, taking a risk and resting her head on the Doctor’s shoulder. The risk paid off completely when the Doctor put an arm around Rose, giving the top of her head a gentle kiss, and Rose smiled into the Doctor’s shoulder. This all felt so… familiar, even though so much had changed since the last time Rose had been in this position in her other universe. It felt safe.

“Funny,” she said. “I’m not really tired.”

“No,” the Doctor said. “Time Lord thing. You need less sleep now. And you might get a little disoriented after too much time travel.”

“What, you start to get disoriented  _ after _ you become a Time Lord?” Rose asked, picking her head up to look at the Doctor. “Bit counterintuitive, don’t you think?”

“Don’t ask me,” the Doctor said. “It’s all cellular. You can control it. I’ll teach you.”

“All right, then,” Rose said, and she rested her head back on the Doctor’s shoulder. She could feel the Doctor smiling against her hair.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” the Doctor asked. She took her sonic screwdriver out of a pocket in her pajama shirt and waved it at the wall in front of them, and it lit up. “I’ve got everything.”

“Sure,” Rose said. “Something from Earth?”

“Of course,” the Doctor said. She pressed the button again and the opening scene to a movie Rose recognized as having been popular when she was in primary school materialized on the wall. She cuddled closer to the Doctor, eyes on the screen, and the Doctor’s arm tightened around her. 

“Is this all right?” the Doctor asked her, her voice quieter than Rose had known it could go.

“It’s perfect,” Rose replied.

She did fall asleep, in the end, about halfway through the movie, resting against the Doctor’s chest, listening to both hearts beating, happier than she’d been in a while. 

As she drifted off to sleep, she heard the Doctor’s voice, the vibrations tickling the side of her face.

“Good night, Rose.”

Rose smiled softly and let herself fall into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I was writing this, I thought, "this needs a plot," and what better to provide a plot than Captain Jack Harkness popping up out of nowhere?


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'ALL I'm updating this at 1:30 AM again!!!

Rose woke up surrounded by warmth. She was still lying with her head on the Doctor’s chest, but at some point, the Doctor had moved them both to a lying position and brought the quilt up around them. The TARDIS around them was playing soft music, and from the way the Doctor was breathing, Rose was sure she was asleep. She closed her eyes, relishing the moment.

She must have dozed off again, because when she opened her eyes again, she was alone in the bed and the Doctor was standing in the corner of the room, fully dressed and adjusting her hair in a tiny little mirror that rested on top of a tower of books.

“Morning,” Rose said, sitting up.

The Doctor turned around, her coat fanning out behind her and knocking the whole tower down.

“Good morning, Rose Tyler,” she said, and then she glanced behind her. “Oops.”

Rose laughed, shaking her hair out of her face. 

“How long have you been up?” she asked.

“Oh, me?” the Doctor said. “Never sleep. Come on, then, Rose.”

“Hang on, I’ve got to get dressed,” Rose said. “Maybe do something about my hair.”

“Looks good to me,” the Doctor said, tilting her head.

“You’d say that if I shaved my head,” Rose said.

“Probably, yeah,” the Doctor agreed. 

“So I’ll meet you in the console room,” Rose said. “And we’ll help Jack, yeah?”

“Yes!” the Doctor exclaimed. “We’re helping Jack.”

Rose slid off of the Doctor’s bed, which, in true Doctor fashion, was about four feet off the ground. “See you in a minute, then,” she said as she left.

“In a minute,” the Doctor agreed, already running around the room, picking things up off the floor and putting them into her pockets.

Once in her own room, Rose stood still for a moment, looking at herself in the mirror. Her mirror was full length, attached to the wall, a major contrast with the Doctor’s. Rose smiled to herself, thinking about it, watching the corners of her mouth lift. 

She had changed, she realized. She didn’t look older, but she looked different from how she had when she had first come on board the TARDIS. She had stopped wearing makeup a while back, and she felt like it did make her look a little older. Or more mature, maybe. And her hair was different, if not by much; she had spent years experimenting with different styles, from curls to braids to buzz cut to bangs, and even different colors, starting with her natural brown but moving on to pinks and blues and reds. But in the end she had grown it out and started bleaching it again, and lately she wore it at a medium length and out of her face, usually in a low ponytail. She brushed it now, and pulled it back, snapping a hair tie around it. A few strands of loose hair fell forward into her face, and she tucked them behind her ear. Even after a hundred years to experiment, she had never really mastered the ponytail.

The TARDIS had put a couple of new things in her closet today, she noticed. A couple of plain T-shirts, new pairs of jeans. She realized that the outfit she had been wearing the day before was clean and hanging in the closet, as well; the TARDIS had clearly analyzed it and come back with similar clothes. She pulled a dark red shirt down and pulled on the jeans. She finished the look with a short leather jacket that she found way in the back of the closet. She looked at herself in the mirror again and smiled. She looked, she thought, like the best version of herself. 

Everyone was in the TARDIS console room already when Rose got there. She slipped in and stood next to the Doctor, who was pressing buttons while talking to Jack. When the Doctor saw Rose, she cut herself off midsentence to say, “Hello, Rose,” with a great big smile before turning back to Jack.

Rose smiled back and left the Doctor and Jack to their conversation, instead letting her eyes wander the TARDIS console. The new look was disorienting, but nice, all things considered. It seemed a lot more user-friendly than it had been. The buttons were practically reaching out, asking to be pressed.

_ Not  _ that Rose was going to press random buttons. She knew full well how badly that could end.

Suddenly, looking at the console, she felt a strange sense of vertigo. She blinked, trying not to visibly wobble. A moment later, her mind seemed to settle, but settle with somehow…  _ more _ than it had had before. She realized she could, somehow, feel the vortex around the TARDIS, she could tell where, exactly, they were within that vortex (not that she knew the actual names and dates, but she could get the relative position), and there were all sorts of times and places pulling at her, and she couldn’t understand any of what was going on inside of her.

She looked away from the console, overwhelmed, and then realized that she felt some sort of sense from the other people in the TARDIS, but she couldn’t quite tell what it was. She blinked again, but even with her eyes closed, she could feel the time vortex around her. 

She reached blindly for the Doctor’s hand, holding it tight to steady herself.

“Doctor,” she said. “Something’s wrong. I can feel-- I don’t know what it is. I can feel-- I can feel  _ time _ .”

The Doctor immediately turned, lifting her hands to put one on the each side of Rose’s head, holding it still. Rose closed her eyes, letting the Doctor do whatever mind meld thing she did, and a moment later, she felt her mind settle down a little. She could sense everything, it was just… a little further away. She opened her eyes to see the Doctor’s earnestness and intensity.

“Time Lords,” she explained, still looking Rose right in the eyes, but projecting her voice enough to give Rose the impression that she was explaining to the room, “have twenty-two different time senses, only one of which is found in humans. Looks like you just got your extra twenty-one.”

“It’s so much,” Rose said. “How do you hold all that in your head?”

“Wait until you feel the Earth turning,” the Doctor said.

“You said that was… who you are.” Rose asked.

“Nah,” the Doctor said. “I was being dramatic. That’s only who I am to people who don’t know me. And who think I’m the only one.”

“And you’re not anymore,” Rose said.

“Nope,” the Doctor said. “Well, and the Time Lords aren’t as dead as they could be, it turns out. You missed that.”

“How?” Rose asked.

“I’ll explain later,” the Doctor said. “They’re still all stuck. And still stuck-up on top of it. Are you all right?”

“I think so,” Rose said. She looked back at the TARDIS console. It wasn’t really all that weird of an experience. It was just like being able to see, but not knowing the names for any of the colors. And Rose had learned the names of the colors, once.

“I’ll teach you how to get used to all those time senses, too,” the Doctor said. “After we finish up here.”

“What just happened?” Rose heard Ryan ask in a low voice.

“I don’t know,” Graham said. “I think it was important.”

“Are we going to help with Jack’s problem, then?” Yaz asked the Doctor.

“Of course,” the Doctor said, and she took a giant step to the TARDIS console, flipping the hourglass with one hand and throwing a lever down with the other. Rose watched, letting the information from her twenty-one new time senses wash over her. It was strange-- she could tell that things were changing around her, but she couldn’t distinguish one sense from the next. She focused on what she’d always been able to sense: the sound of the TARDIS, the Doctor running around the console, pressing buttons, the strange metallic smell that came with time travel-- or wait. No. That one was new. 

With a thud, the TARDIS landed, and Rose’s mind settled again. Things had changed. She wished she knew how to tell what, exactly, those things were. 

The Doctor came around the console to hold Rose by the shoulders.

“You all right, Rose?” she asked.

Rose nodded, letting the Doctor’s hands anchor her.

“Fine,” she said. “Overwhelmed.”

The Doctor backed up and pulled her sonic screwdriver out of her pocket. She scanned Rose.

“Thought so,” she said. “It’s like you’re regenerating. Your whole body has to learn how to be a Time Lord. You’ll be all right. A bit shaky, probably. Take it easy, if you can.”

“I’m still coming with you,” Rose said. 

“Of course,” the Doctor said. “Just tell us if you need a break, yeah? Or if you feel like you’re about to fall asleep. Happens, sometimes. No shame in it.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Graham asked. “You could pass out in the middle of running from an alien.”

“Everything we do is dangerous,” Yaz said. “I hardly think this is the worst of it.”

“I’ve been running around out there long enough,” Rose said. “I think I can handle 2022 London.”

“How long’s it been for you?” Jack asked.

“Fifty years,” Rose admitted. “There was a lot of other time and space to see, by the time I got my time machine working.”

“You made a time machine?” Jack asked.

“The Doctor helped,” Rose said. “The human Doctor, I mean. He had all sorts of time travel knowledge. I just had to put the hardware together.”

“You weren’t mechanical before,” the Doctor said. 

“I started when I got to the other universe,” Rose said. “Remember, the first time I came back? I had to make that whole dimension cannon myself. Turns out I like that sort of thing.”

“I always knew you were brilliant,” the Doctor said. She held eye contact with Rose for a moment, grinning, and then she turned to everyone else, jumping into action. “All right, everyone, let’s go. Jack, I want everything you can tell us about your alien problem.”

As Jack started talking, walking a couple of steps ahead of them, Rose stepped out of the TARDIS. She was half-listening to Jack’s narration, which involved things going missing and what sounded like a downright hilarious fight, but the minute her foot hit solid ground, she was much more focused on the sensation she was feeling. She still felt stable on the ground, the same as always, but underneath that stability, she could  _ feel _ that she was moving. The world was turning beneath her feet, hurtling through the sky, and now, finally, she knew what that meant. It was exhilarating. A smile sprung to her face, and she grabbed the Doctor’s hand.

“You all right?” the Doctor asked her, quietly.

“Yep,” Rose said. “Just getting used to things being all wobbly.”

“It’ll settle down,” the Doctor said. “Most of us do this when we’re much younger.”

“How young?” Rose asked.

“Five or six,” the Doctor said. “I barely remember it.”

“Are you two even listening?” Jack asked, turning around to look at them.

“Only with half my left ear,” the Doctor said. 

Rose grinned at her. Jack rolled his eyes and turned back around.

“Whatever,” he said. “We’re almost there.”

Ten minutes later, they were all sitting around in Jack’s living room, four of them crammed onto one couch. The Doctor hadn’t let go of Rose’s hand once, and now they sat next to each other, Rose’s knees pulled up to her chest, the Doctor leaning forward with interest as Jack showed her the readings he was getting from the aliens.

“Strong energy field,” the Doctor murmured. “It’s taking a lot for them to stay invisible. Do we know what they want?”

“Not sure,” Jack said. “They haven’t been able to communicate. They’ve just been stealing-- there’s an epidemic worldwide of little things going missing, and a few people have had encounters where they’ve tripped over nothing, or bumped into an invisible figure. No one’s died. My best guess is they’re hiding from something.”

“Probably us,” Yaz said. She was on the Doctor’s other side, leaning forward with her chin on her hand.

“It’s possible,” Jack said, “but we still don’t know how they got here.”

“So,” the Doctor said, “we find one, we disrupt its energy field, we see if we can see it, we ask it some questions. Sound good?”

“Works for me,” Jack said. 

“Where do we look?” Graham asked.

“We don’t, right?” Yaz asked. “If they’re invisible.”

“Could try listening,” Rose said. “Jack, where are we most likely to find them?”

“Anywhere,” Jack said.

“Let’s go outside,” the Doctor said. “Jack, do you have any flour?”

“Sure,” Jack said. “Are you going to bake them a cake?”

“No,” the Doctor said. “We’re going to spread the flour around and look for footprints. Good idea, though, a cake. Maybe later.”

“With different flour, I hope,” Graham said.

The Doctor quickly located Jack’s flour, and the group headed outside, standing in a circle on the sidewalk. The Doctor took the bag of flour and flipped it over, shaking it around until the inside of the circle was covered in white.

“What now?” Yaz asked.

“We wait,” Rose said. “Clear the way, yeah?”

The group dispersed to the edge of the street, leaning against the door of Jack’s building. 

They waited for a while. Just as Rose was about to suggest they go back inside and check back later, she heard a voice calling her name.

She looked around and saw a figure running towards her.

“No, way,” she breathed. “Mickey?”

Mickey came to a stop in front of her. 

“Rose? How are you here?” He paused. “Or, no, don’t tell me. This is actually younger you, time traveling. Yeah?” 

Rose saw someone running up behind Mickey. She thought she recognized Martha Jones, but what were the chances of seeing them both at once. As the person came closer, though, she realized it was definitely Martha. 

“I’m not younger,” she said to Mickey.

Mickey’s eyes flicked down to where Rose’s hand was joined with the Doctor’s.

“And you’re into girls now?” he asked. “Where’s the Doctor?”

Martha had come closer, now, and she was standing next to Mickey. Her eyes were wide, and she was staring at the Doctor. 

“Doctor?” she asked.

“That’s me,” the Doctor said. “Hello. Bit of a new face.”

“I’ll say,” Mickey said. “But-- Rose-- I thought you were stuck in a parallel universe.”

“Kind of got unstuck,” Rose said. She glanced at the Doctor, then back at Mickey. “We should catch up. I’ll buy chips.”

“Right now?” Mickey asked.

“Unless you’ve got something else to do,” Rose said.

“No, that’s all right,” Mickey said. “Martha, are you--”

“I’m going to stay right here,” Martha said. “I want to know what you’re up to this time, Doctor.”

“Waiting, mostly,” the Doctor said. “I hate waiting.”

“Doctor, you’ll be all right if I go with Mickey?” Rose asked.

“Course we will,” the Doctor said. “We’ll save the world, you go have tea.”

“I’ll be back,” Rose said, and she squeezed the Doctor’s hand before following Mickey.

They walked a couple blocks in silence, and then they were in the chip shop, ordering. Finally, they were sitting across from each other, trying to think of what to say.

“So, you’re back,” Mickey said. “What happened to the Doctor in your universe?”

“He died,” Rose said, her voice soft. “I’m old, Mickey.”

“How old?” Mickey asked.

“Hundred years,” Rose said. “It’s-- it’s complicated. Remember when I looked into the heart of the TARDIS?”

“Yeah,” Mickey said. “I drove the truck. You’re telling me that made you immortal?”

“It made me a Time Lord,” Rose said.

“Like what he is,” Mickey said. “She is.”

“Yeah,” Rose said. “Only we didn’t realize I wasn’t aging until I’d already been married to the metacrisis Doctor for five years. He was getting older, but I wasn’t.”

“Kind of ironic,” Mickey said.

“I know, right?” Rose laughed. “We… we lived together for about sixty years until he died. And then I traveled on my own for a bit, but I was lonely, and so I launched myself back here.” She picked up a chip. “So that’s my story. What’ve you been up to?”

“Well, I married Martha,” Mickey said. “You’ll be glad to hear we’ve been aging regular.  She’s a proper doctor now and everything.”

“That’s great,” Rose said. “Great for you two. It’s been, what, eight years?”

“Eleven since I came back here,” Mickey said. “Eight since we got married. And our oldest kid is six.”

“You’ve got kids!” Rose exclaimed. “Oh, I bet they’re right terrors.”

“Little bit,” Mickey admitted. 

Rose laughed.

“That’s amazing,” she said. “I’m so happy for you.”

“You never had kids?” Mickey asked. 

“Nah,” Rose said. “Didn’t know if I could. Didn’t really want to, anyway. Babysat Tony a bunch, but he and I don’t talk anymore.”

“I suppose the gap between universes would do it,” Mickey said.

“He wants to live a normal life,” Rose said. “He’s got a wife and kids and a perfect little house. Not my speed at all.”

“Fair enough,” Mickey said. “Me, I want it all. Wife, kids, aliens, all of it.”

“And you’ve got it,” Rose said.

“I’ve got it,” Mickey agreed.

They had finished eating, and now they were just sitting in the chip shop, trying to think of things to say to each other.

“It’s been so long,” Rose said. “Since I’ve seen you. Eighty years.”

“Yeah,” Mickey said. “Bet you didn’t miss me.”

“That’s not fair,” Rose said. “I did. Just because we weren’t destined to be in love forever doesn’t mean--”

“Yeah,” Mickey said. “I know.” He looked around. “Better be getting back, yeah? Can’t have Martha running around with aliens without me. I might miss out.”

“Can’t have that,” Rose said. “Good catching up with you.”

“Yeah,” Mickey said. “And you.” 

They got up and started walking back. They didn’t get very far, though, because the Doctor was running at them, flanked by the others-- Yaz, Graham, Ryan, Jack, and Martha.

“Rose!” she called. “Rose,” she said again, coming to a stop inches from Rose, putting her hands on Rose’s shoulders in her excitement. “And Mickey, too,” she said giving him a glance.

“Good to know that hasn’t changed,” Rose heard Mickey mutter to Martha, who had come up next to him.

“Rose, we’ve figured it out,” the Doctor said. “The aliens-- they’re not dangerous. They’re not even hiding from us at all. They were hiding from each other!”

“What for?” Rose asked.

“That’s the thing,” the Doctor said, backing away. “We’re not actually sure. We’ve gotten one to talk to us, and that one said that the others were going to hurt them, but we haven’t actually got any evidence of that from the others.”

“Could just be scared,” Rose said. “If it can’t see the others. How did it get here?”

“Ship crashed,” the Doctor said. “Funny thing, it crashed alone. No one else. But Jack says there’s invisible things everywhere.”

“What if it’s not the only one?” Rose asked. “What if there were lots of ships that crashed, and this one’s scared of the others, and the others are all scared of it?”

“And they’re all so scared of each other,” the Doctor said, her hands to her head as she looked up at the sky, “that they’re all invisible! That’s it!” She jumped into motion, pacing a tiny patch of sidewalk. “We have to get them to talk to each other. All of them, all at once. But how?”

“Could try the Internet,” Martha said. “Or cell phones, or something. They have to talk to each other without having to see each other, right?”

“Oh, that’s brilliant,” the Doctor said. She took out her sonic screwdriver and waved it at nothing in particular. “And their technology is compatible,” she said, reading off the display. “Oh, this just might work. Someone, give me your phone.”

“Oh, no you don’t,” Ryan said. “I’m not falling for that again.”

The Doctor turned around and gave him a look. 

“It saved your life last time,” she said.

“You know, Doctor,” Jack said, “maybe you should get your own phone one of these days.”

Yaz rolled her eyes.

“Here you go,” she said, offering her phone. “Try not to reformat it.”

“Nah, no need,” the Doctor said, pressing her screwdriver against the phone. “I’m just going to reconfigure the signal a bit. Should be able to put it right back after.”

For a moment, the only sounds were the sound of the screwdriver and the traffic and people noise around them as everyone stood and watched the Doctor boost the signal. A moment later, the Doctor put the screwdriver away and handed the phone back to Yaz, saying, “Don’t try to call anyone for a moment. It’s still doing its work.”

“What’s happening?” Martha asked.

“I created a sort of telepathic field,” the Doctor said. “Using every cell tower on Earth, calibrated on the exact wavelength of the aliens’ minds. Right now, they can all hear each other. They can hear each other’s hopes… and their fears.”

The Doctor held very still for a moment, and Rose was still, too, feeling a sense of anticipation, like they were all waiting for something.

And then, out of the corner of her eye, Rose saw something appear. She turned her head and saw a creature that looked vaguely humanoid, although its knees seemed to bend in the wrong direction, and its skin was completely white and seemed to be a little bit more moist than human skin, and it had four extra eyes. She turned in the other direction, towards the chip shop, and saw another one, and another. They were all wobbling a little bit, but as Rose watched, two of them circled each other, and then started talking in high-pitched alien voices. 

“Job well done, then,” the Doctor said. “They’ll figure out how to get off this planet, now they can work together at it.”

“I bet we can give them some help,” Jack said. “Thanks, Doctor.”

“You’re very welcome,” the Doctor said.

There were a number of awkward goodbyes-- Mickey and Martha both told Rose and the Doctor to come visit sometime, and Rose and the Doctor both said that of course they would, and Jack got one last flirt in with the whole crew, and then everyone went their separate ways. Once in the TARDIS, the Doctor looked at Ryan, Graham, and Yaz, and said, “Well, we’re close to your home. Anyone want a quick visit? Tea at Yaz’s? Rose, you’ll like tea at Yaz’s.”

Rose had gotten used to her new senses a bit; the TARDIS moving through space and time didn’t bother her nearly as much as it had, and she was starting to understand how the senses worked. When the TARDIS stopped at Sheffield, she did indeed join everyone for tea, watching while Yaz traded insults with her sister and rolled her eyes at her father and laughed with Ryan and Graham. As the meal wound down and everyone was still talking, Rose quietly tapped the Doctor on the shoulder and said, “I’m going for a walk.”

“Do you want company?” the Doctor asked.

“Nah,” Rose said. “I’m all right. Thanks.”

She left the flat and went down the stairs to the ground level of the city. She didn’t know Sheffield very well, but that didn’t matter; she was just going wherever her feet took her. It was evening, and the sun was setting, light coming out of restaurants and shops along the street. Rose walked the streets until she came to a river. She always liked rivers, somehow. Water. Important things tended to happen by water. Bad Wolf Bay. Canary Wharf. Not good things, always, but important. 

She sat on the riverbank, watching the water flow by, the streetlights reflected in the current. She was thinking about Yaz’s family, how much they needled each other. She had forgotten what that was like, in the past however many years-- her mum had died ages ago, and the other Doctor had been all the family she had had over there. For the past twenty years, she hadn’t even had him.

And she was thinking about Mickey, who had moved on from her, which was good, which she was glad of. He was married to Martha, and they seemed to be living a pretty nice life. Exactly the kind of life that they deserved.

Rose understood, now, how the Doctor felt. With timelines spinning around her, her family all dead and gone, she somehow felt alone and overwhelmed at once. She could look at the water in the river and know where it had been, where it might be going, what was inside of it. She could feel that the Earth was turning, she could feel that the world was suspended in the universe, so very far away from other life. 

She was lonely on behalf of the planet, then, and that added to her own loneliness, and she leaned back, her palms on the ground behind her. She closed her eyes and let everything wash around her, all the new senses of exactly where she was, where she fit in in time and space.

Ironically, she lost track of how long she had been sitting there when she felt someone sit down next to her. She looked to her right and saw the Doctor’s new face looking back at her.

“You all right?” the Doctor asked.

Rose hesitated. Really, she  _ was _ all right-- or, she would be. But that wasn’t really what the Doctor was asking.

“I was just thinking about my mum,” she said. “She died, in my world. She’s dead. I don’t have a mum anymore.”

“It’s hard, isn’t it?” the Doctor asked. “Being left over?”

“Yeah,” Rose said. “How do you do it?”

“Nothing else to do,” the Doctor said. “I make friends. I lose them. I make more friends. Only thing I can do, when I live so much longer.”

“I always knew you were lonely,” Rose said.

“Yeah,” the Doctor admitted. 

“I want to stay with you,” Rose said, looking out at the river. “As long as I can.” She was no longer young enough to say the word “forever.”

“Really?” the Doctor asked, looking so intently at Rose that she had to turn her head and hold eye contact. “You really want to stay with me?”

“Yeah,” Rose said. “I didn’t know-- everything was different, and I’m a Time Lord and you’re a woman, and I wasn’t sure, at first, if we would still be-- together, like we were, but-- I think you need somebody, Doctor. And I think I need somebody too.”

The Doctor’s hand covered Rose’s.  

“I’d be honored,” she said. “To have you aboard? I’d be honored.”

Rose flipped her fingers over to interlace with the Doctor’s. Still watching the river flow, she rested her head on the Doctor’s shoulder.

“I can’t wait,” she said. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do feel like I got rid of Jack a bit too quickly. He'll probably come back. (The plan is... to keep writing this fic basically indefinitely. Also, as canon continues, depending on what happens, I'll probably retroactively declare a point at which this AU officially diverged from canon. Probably that'll happen one or more of if the current companions leave, or in the unlikely event that the Thirteen/Yaz romance the Internet has been waiting for or something similar where the Doctor has other romantic prospects happens.)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i reference a few plot points in this chapter that did not happen on the show but just... bear with me. it's mostly an excuse to get certain older characters in and there'll be a bit more in the way of an explanation next chapter

Rose and the Doctor walked back to Yaz’s place, where Ryan, Graham, and Yaz were all waiting by the TARDIS.

“Everything all right?” Yaz asked.

“Well, I didn’t pass out, did I?” Rose said. “How’s your family?”

“They’re all right,” Yaz said. “I think they wish I’d come home more often. Funny, because it’s a time machine.”

“My mum was the same way,” Rose said. “Every time I came home, she’d get so mad at me for being gone, she barely remembered to say hello.”

“Where is she now?” Yaz asked.

“She died,” Rose said. “In the other universe, a while back. She got old.”

“I keep forgetting you’re older than you look,” Yaz said.

“You and me both,” Rose said. 

“So,” the Doctor said, pushing past the group to open the TARDIS doors, “where are we going tomorrow?” As the group filed in, she added, “Oh! You know what we never did, Rose? Barcelona. Lovely place, Barcelona. Went with Donna, sort of by accident. We were looking for the crystal cliffs of Banthelona, got way off track. Whole thing was a big mess. Anyway. Anyone in for Barcelona tomorrow?”

“Barcelona?” Yaz asked.

“The planet,” Rose said. “Right, Doctor?”

“Exactly,” the Doctor said. “The planet Barcelona. Much more interesting than the one on Earth, if you ask me. We’ll just have to hit it a few years earlier than last time.”

“What are the chances we get that right?” Graham asked.

“Oh, she’s doing her best,” the Doctor said, patting one of the TARDIS’s crystals. “Leave her be. We always have fun, don’t we?”

“Whatever you say,” Ryan said. “I’ll be in the game room. Graham?”

“Not tonight,” Graham said. “Got some reading I want to do.”

“What sort of reading?” Yaz asked.

“Barcelona,” Graham said. “Got to see what we’re in for, yeah?”

“You know how to find the library, yeah?” the Doctor asked.

“Same place as last time, right?”

“Well, unless she’s been rearranging things again,” the Doctor said. 

“I’ll come with you, Ryan,” Yaz said. “Good night Doctor. Rose.”

Everyone said good night to each other and went their separate ways, leaving Rose and the Doctor alone again in the TARDIS, standing side by side, looking at the console.

“Did you mean it?” Rose asked. “About Barcelona?”

“Of course,” the Doctor said, looking at her, almost offended. “Told you I’d take you, didn’t I? Mind, it was about a thousand years ago, now, but a promise is a promise.”

Rose smiled and bumped her shoulder to the Doctor’s. Looking up at the Doctor, she said, “I always hoped I could do this again. Traveling. With you.”

“And now you can,” the Doctor said. She leapt away from Rose, running around the TARDIS console, fiddling with things. “Sorry,” she called out to Rose, “I’m just popping us into the time vortex for the night. Can you get that red button?”

Rose looked for the button in question-- she found it easily, and put her hand to it. 

“This one?” she asked.

The Doctor appeared right next to her left shoulder. 

“That’s the one,” she said, and gave Rose a brilliant smile before running the other way.

Rose pressed the button, and suddenly another one of her new senses kicked in, and she was hit with the knowledge that if she fiddled with the knob just below, the takeoff would be more stable, and the lever two feet away would give them more control of where (and when), exactly, they were floating, and Rose had to fight the urge to start running around just like the Doctor. She wasn’t about to start trying to fly another woman’s ship, especially when it was the Doctor’s TARDIS. 

But then she felt something else, and this time it was-- a sense of  _ welcome _ . A sense of  _ home _ . A sense of  _ well, come on, then _ . And Rose remembered the Doctor saying that the TARDIS was telepathic, to some degree, and so she let herself fiddle with the knob, and then she lunged for the lever, and then the other way to a crank, and then the TARDIS was floating stable in the time vortex, and Rose was standing next to the Doctor, each of them grinning at the other.

“TARDIS telepathy’s working on you now,” the Doctor said. “Oh, this is fun! I haven’t had someone to fly with in years.”

“That’s amazing,” Rose said. “I definitely get it now. You and the TARDIS.”

“She’s wonderful,” the Doctor said. She looked at Rose. “And I just want to say-- I’m excited to be traveling with you again, Rose Tyler.”

“Me, too,” Rose said. “Doctor.” She paused. “And, did I mention? I love your new friends.”

“They’re brilliant, aren’t they?” The Doctor grinned. “Love having friends.” She paused. “Oh! I bet Ryan’s still in the game room. I bet we could beat him at MarioKart.”

“You think we’re going to beat the nineteen-year-old boy from 2018 at MarioKart?” Rose asked.

“This is 3D MarioKart,” the Doctor said. “Played on the HoloWii.”

“I thought that was just in my universe,” Rose said. “Hard to keep track, sometimes.”

“No, it’s here, come see!” The Doctor took Rose’s hand and pulled her through the corridors, just as if they were running from an alien. Rose ran along after until the Doctor stopped them, opening a door that led into a room reminiscent of a suburban basement with a sofa, television, a foosball table, an air hockey table, and a shelf of board games, plus a few different gaming set-ups that Rose didn’t recognize. Ryan was sitting on the couch, playing some sort of gritty car-related game, leaning wildly one way and then the other as he spun his onscreen car off the road and crashed it; Yaz was at a nearby table, her gloved hands moving a character through a complex holographic landscape. As Rose and the Doctor watched, Ryan’s player character got out of the car, walked back to the road, and got into another car, which Ryan promptly crashed.

“Yes!” he exclaimed, pumping his fist in the air.

“Is  _ this  _ what you do back here?” the Doctor asked. 

Ryan turned around, resting his elbow on the back of the couch.

“Yeah,” he said. “The game’s two-player, if you want to join.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Yaz said, saving her game with a flick of her wrist. “He’ll just crash his car into yours.”

“Yeah, and it’ll be  _ awesome _ ,” Ryan said.

“Yaz,” the Doctor said, ignoring Ryan completely, “do you want to play MarioKart with us? I promised Rose MarioKart.”

“Sure,” Yaz said. “On here?”

“If you want to play,” the Doctor said. 

“Of course,” Yaz said. “Take some gloves.”

The Doctor bounded up to the now-blank table and reached underneath, pulling out a pair of gloves and handing them to Rose before putting another pair on herself.

A couple minutes later, they were standing around the table, picking out characters with twitches of their fingers. Rose didn’t know much about Mario, so she flicked between a few, finally choosing Peach. Pink and yellow, just like Rose. 

It took a couple races for Rose to get the hang of the controls, but once she did, she thoroughly enjoyed herself. She had gotten so hung up in the big adventures that she had forgotten the little adventures of life in the TARDIS-- MarioKart from hundreds of years in the future, laughing with the Doctor and sometimes a friend or two… Rose had missed that almost as much as she had missed the running and the saving things.

Unfortunately, she had never been good at MarioKart. Yaz soundly beat both her and the Doctor at not one, not two, but three tournaments before she took off her gloves and said, “I think I’d better be getting to bed.”

“Coward,” Ryan said, still completely focused on his screen.

“Oi,” Yaz said, “don’t complain to me when we’re trying to fight off some alien and you’re half-asleep.”

“Charming friends you’ve got there,” Rose said to the Doctor.

“We get the job done,” the Doctor said.

“I know,” Rose said, grinning. “I love it.”

The Doctor grinned back at her.

They kept playing; they were pretty evenly matched once Yaz left the room. They tied a tournament, and then Rose won one, and then the Doctor won. Eventually, Ryan went to bed, yawning, but Rose wasn’t tired at all. 

“I guess I really am a Time Lord,” she said to the Doctor, taking off her gloves and stowing them underneath the table. “Anything else I should look out for?”

“You might grow a tail,” the Doctor said.

“You’re joking,” Rose laughed. She paused. “You are-- joking, right?”

“Yeah, I’m joking,” the Doctor said. She grinned at Rose. “Oh, but this is brilliant! Finally there’s not this weird space in the middle of the night that I have to fill with pretending to fix the TARDIS.”

The walls glowed red, and the Doctor looked up at the ceiling.

“Oh, stop it!” she called. “You know full well you don’t need more than a quick look-over every few years.”

There was a gentle bubbling noise, and Rose laughed, taking the Doctor’s hand..

“She’s gonna break up with you if you aren’t careful,” she said.

“She can’t do that,” the Doctor said. “I stole her fair and square.”

The walls turned back to their regular bronze, and Rose laughed.

“I hope she still likes me,” she said, still smiling.

“She’s just jealous,” the Doctor promised her. “She’ll get over it.”

The TARDIS didn’t respond to that one, whether it was because she had stopped listening or because she refused to dignify the Doctor’s words with a response.

“So is that what you do?” Rose asked. “When the humans are asleep?”

“Sometimes,” the Doctor said. “Sometimes I like to read six books in a row. Sometimes I paint a picture, but I’m not very good at painting. Sometimes I see what else I have around to upgrade. Did you see the toaster in the kitchen?”

“No,” Rose said. “What’s it do?”

“Twenty-seven flavors,” the Doctor said. “Want to try?”

“Of course I do,” Rose told her, already halfway out the door. 

It was another little adventure. The Doctor, grinning, took Rose’s hand and led her into the kitchen, where the toaster was indeed capable of imbuing bread with twenty-seven flavors, each stranger than the next.

“What’s a hedu fruit?” Rose asked, turning the dial to a picture of something round and green.

“Oh, it’s brilliant,” the Doctor said. “From the planet Hoxx. Four billion light-years from Earth. It’s a whole planet practically made of different sorts of fruit.”

“I’m trying it,” Rose decided, popping a slice of bread into the toaster. She twirled the flavor dial and pressed the lever down. She hopped up to sit on the counter, kicking her legs while she waited. The Doctor jumped up next to her.

“So,” Rose said, “what else have you been up to? It’s been, what, a thousand years since I saw you last?”

“Give or take,” the Doctor said. “I’ve done a lot. Made friends. Lost them. Oh, I chased living snow around Victorian London. That was a day. Got married, but I had already watched her die, so I’m still not sure where I stand on that. Oh, and did you know the moon’s an egg?”

“The moon’s a what?” Rose asked. “Wait, no, hang on. Did you say you got married?”

“An egg,” the Doctor said, “and yes. I didn’t know how to tell you--”

“And she was already dead?” 

“I’m a time traveler,” the Doctor explained. “Things got  _ really complicated _ for a while. I think they’ve all settled down now, but I suppose I’ll never know for sure.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Oh, probably eight hundred years or so,” the Doctor said. “I haven’t seen her in  _ ages _ . I don’t think our timelines are interacting anymore. I don’t know. It’s very confusing.”

Rose blinked. She hadn’t expected the Doctor to be monogamous, of course. And she also hadn’t expected the Doctor to have spent the last thousand years pining after her. It was just… well, part of her had sort of hoped. 

The toast popped out of the toaster. Rose jumped. She plucked the toast out of the slot and held it by the edges, trying her best to ignore her burning fingers. 

She took a bite. Whatever the fruit was, it tasted great combined with slightly charred bread. 

“Good toast,” she said.

“Thanks,” the Doctor said. “You’re not mad about my wife?”

“Not really,” Rose said. “You’re thousands of years old. Makes sense that you get around.” She smiled. “Anyway, it’s not like I haven’t been married since I saw you last.”

“Really? To who?”

“Oh, you know this one,” Rose said. “Come on.”

“Oh, yeah. Parallel me.” The Doctor looked at Rose. “It  _ was _ parallel me, right?”

“Yeah,” Rose said. “I guess I don’t really mind you being married. It’s not like you only have enough love for one person. And anyway, we both know the TARDIS comes first.”

There was a noise not unlike bells ringing.

“I promise you, I have so much love to give, Rose Tyler,” the Doctor said, with her usual intensity. “Can I try your toast?”

Rose tore off a piece and handed it to the Doctor.

“ _ Good _ toast,” the Doctor said, her mouth full. “I really  _ have  _ outdone myself. You know, I was thinking about doing the blender next.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I think I could get at least six unique textures programmed in,” the Doctor explained.

Rose rested her head on the Doctor’s shoulder.

“I can’t wait.” 

In the hours that followed, they tried all twenty-seven flavors of toast as they exchanged story after story. The Doctor told Rose about meeting Amy Pond her (his?) first day after he (she?) had regenerated, and meeting Clara three times before they actually started traveling together, and Rose told the Doctor about all the friends she had made in her other universe. But it was a bittersweet exchange, because everyone they were talking about had died, or disappeared, or just plain left their lives. Rose had never quite realized what that meant for the Doctor. She realized that she had been one of that list of names, of people who the Doctor had wanted to love but couldn’t keep around long enough-- and the Doctor had been on her list, too, of people she had loved and thought she had lost.

Rose was still young, by the Doctor’s standards.

She wondered how many people she would add to her list.

After a while, conversation (and toast flavors) ran out, and the Doctor and Rose sat silently, still sitting on the kitchen counter. The Doctor was somehow managing to lie in Rose’s lap while still having her feet hang off the counter; Rose was absently braiding little bits of the Doctor’s hair.

“This is nice,” she said. “You never used to have all this hair to play with. Not that I had any problems with your hair from before.”

“Still not ginger, mind,” the Doctor said.

“Still on about that, are you?”

The Doctor didn’t respond. Rose laughed.

Just then, there were footsteps in the hall, and the kitchen door burst open. The Doctor 

“I found them!” Ryan’s voice called. “Morning, Doctor, Rose,” he said, at a more reasonable volume.

“Morning,” Rose said, twisting around to see him. “Have you tried this toaster? It’s marvelous.”

“Oh, yeah, the Doctor’s twenty-seven-flavor toaster,” Ryan said. “Heard about that a fair few times, haven’t we, Doctor?”

“Oi, it’s a good toaster,” the Doctor said, jumping off the counter. “Were you looking for us?”

“Only because we didn’t know where you were,” Ryan said. “Usually you’re in the console room when we wake up. Just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“Oh, it’s the TARDIS,” the Doctor said. “She usually tells me when you’re about to wake up. Didn’t today. Don’t know why. Doesn’t really matter.”

“It’s all right,” Ryan said. “Took me to the kitchen, and I’m proper hungry. Yaz and Graham are behind me, by the way. Don’t know how far behind. This place really is a maze.”

“It really is,” the Doctor agreed. “I don’t know where I’m going half the time myself!”

“She never has, either,” Rose said to Ryan. To the Doctor, she asked, “Remember when you got lost looking for the library?”

“If you’re just here to bring up things I did over a thousand years ago--”

“Only eighty years ago to me,” Rose said, gleeful.

“You two are ridiculous,” Ryan said, pushing past them to the toaster. Rose noticed he set it to unflavored before he put his bread in. 

Yaz appeared in the doorway then, fully out of breath.

“Your ship gave me such a workout!” she said to the Doctor. “Didn’t ask for it, mind.”

“Don’t blame me,” the Doctor said. “She likes her games.”

“That doesn’t mean she has to play them with me,” Yaz said, but there was clearly no malice in her words. 

Behind her, Graham’s face popped up.

“Thank goodness,” he said. “I thought she was getting us lost on purpose.”

“Probably was,” Rose snickered.

“Not you, too,” the Doctor said to Rose.

“When did you ever get the idea I was on your side?” Rose asked her.

“Oh, there are sides now?” The Doctor gave Rose a look. “When did the sides happen?”

“I’m just kidding,” Rose said, giving the Doctor a smile. “You know I’m always on your side.”

The Doctor looked at her like she was the only thing in the universe. It was impressive, because the Doctor knew better than anyone how many things there were in the universe.

“Yaz,” Ryan said, “they’re being gross again.”

After breakfast, they all trooped to the console room. They landed in Barcelona a few minutes later with a  _ thud _ .

Rose could immediately tell that something was off. Time was clashing, somehow, but she didn’t know enough to know exactly what was happening. It was more of a vague sense of unease.

“Where are we?” she asked the Doctor. “It doesn’t feel right.”

“Shouldn’t,” the Doctor said. She looked up at the central column. “Why’ve you done this?” she asked the TARDIS.

“Done what?” Ryan asked.

“It’s the wrong time,” the Doctor said. “If we go out there, I risk crossing my own timeline.” She started fiddling with the TARDIS, but Rose could tell it wasn’t going to work. 

Rose was right. The Doctor slammed her hand onto the lever, and nothing happened.

“Well,” she said, “might as well go out and see what’s keeping us here,” she said. “It’s not like I’ve never crossed my own timeline before.”

“You have?” Rose asked.

“Oh, yes, you missed that!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Quite a few times, it turns out. But the Time Lord mind has a lovely way of covering it up, so I don’t remember it until after it’s all happened for me.”

“Weird,” Rose said. 

“Necessary,” the Doctor corrected. “What with all the jumping about we do.”

“So we’re just going to go out there and hope we don’t meet you?” Graham asked. 

“I think we’re going to,” the Doctor said, still pressing buttons. “There’s a great big bit of time that I don’t remember at all. I know we ran into a problem, but I don’t remember how we solved it.” She looked at a monitor. “And the TARDIS doesn’t have any good information about why we’re stuck here, either.”

“This is with Donna, yeah?” Rose asked.

“Donna,” the Doctor agreed. “Oh, I haven’t seen her in a while. That’ll be fun, at least. I think you lot will really like her.”

“This is the one who lost her memory?” Yaz asked.

“Yes,” the Doctor said, “but it hasn’t happened yet, and you can’t tell her.”

“Of course,” Yaz said. “No interfering, right, Doctor?”

“I mean it,” the Doctor said. “For the record, I  _ always _ mean it. It’s just that nothing ever goes according to plan.” 

“You make plans?” Rose asked.

“Shut up!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Well, you’ll still like Barcelona, maybe. Although it’s a bit of a war zone now.”

“What exactly are we facing?” Graham asked.

“Krillitanes,” the Doctor said. “Rose, you remember the Krillitanes, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” Rose said. “With that awful school, and Sarah Jane?”

“Exactly,” the Doctor said. To the others, she explained, “The Krillitanes are a species of alien that assimilates genetic and physical characteristics from the races they conquer. When Rose and I saw them, they were essentially giant bats, but if I remember correctly, this is a few generations past that phase. They’ve evolved into sort of giant dragonflies with scaly reptile legs and human-like faces.”

“I look forward to seeing that,” Rose laughed. 

The Doctor glanced at one of her monitors.

“Well, they’re not  _ right _ outside,” she said, “but I’m sure you’ll be seeing them soon.”

“Another day for team TARDIS, then,” Graham said.

“You didn’t tell me you were a  _ team _ ,” Rose said to the Doctor. “Do you compete now? Competitive time travel?”

“Must’ve slipped my mind,” the Doctor said. “Right, then. Let’s get a shift on.”

They piled out of the TARDIS. Rose’s mind was mostly on the creeping  _ wrongness  _ she was sensing, but even with that, she had a moment to realize how nice it would have been to visit Barcelona under other circumstances; they had parked in an alley, and as they emerged onto a street, Rose looked up to see a dazzling lavender sky and two suns shining brightly down on a busy street. The buildings looked old, made from worn-down bricks, but the people were as futuristic as any Rose had seen, with holograms on their T shirts and all sorts of different non-human features. There were no cat-people, but she saw at least two people with neon green skin, a few with antlers, and multiple with tails passing by the spot where she and the gang stood. And none of that even touched the flying cars.

“Barcelona,” the Doctor said, her voice hushed. “Specifically, Rome, Barcelona. Don’t know why the planet decided they needed to go twofold on the copying European cities, but that’s just me, I suppose.”

“We should go to real Rome sometime,” Graham said. “Best vacation I ever took, Rome.”

“I’ll take you to meet my friend Clodia,” the Doctor said. “Real nice lady. Too bad about all the scandals. It’s  _ hard _ to be a woman.”

“And you’re just figuring that out now,” Yaz said.

“Oi, two thousand years of being seen as a man, I wasn’t exactly dismantling the patriarchy from the inside, was I?” the Doctor asked. “By the way, gender is absolutely the most ridiculous thing any species managed to come up with. You show up as a woman and all of a sudden no one thinks you’re up for  _ anything _ .”

“She’s still sore about the witch trials,” Ryan explained to Rose.

“I would be too, if I were caught up in witch trials,” Rose said.

“ _ Thank  _ you,” the Doctor said. “Anyway, everyone ready to get into some trouble?”

“Always,” Rose said, grinning at the Doctor. 

“So I’m fairly sure the Krillitanes are… that way,” the Doctor said, pointing down the street. “They were holed up in the Colosseum last time.”

“This planet’s got a Colosseum?” Yaz asked.

“It’s Rome!” the Doctor exclaimed. “You think they made a Rome without a Colosseum? Mind you, the original was much more impressive, although the gladiatorial fights got a bit much. They just use this one for concerts. Or they did, before it became a Krillitane fortress. Come on, then!”

“So how far have the Krillitanes gotten in colonizing, then?” Rose asked. She had actually run into a couple of Krillitane colonies in the parallel universe; they usually took power pretty quickly if they decided it was worth their time.

“They haven’t, really,” the Doctor said. “It’s sort of funny. They’ve driven people out of the Colosseum, but they never really did much there, anyway, except the concerts. Last time we found them because we were trying to go to a concert and then we had to find out why they’d stopped.”

“Good job we already know,” Graham said. “Won’t waste any time trying to listen to music or anything.”

“After this is over,” the Doctor said, “we’re going to Barcelona thirty years ago. It’s much nicer.”

“Doctor, look,” Ryan said, pointing at a tiny dachshund prancing by. “That dog doesn’t have any nose.”

“Oh, didn’t I mention?” the Doctor said. “That’s the other thing about Barcelona. The dogs don’t have any noses. All right, everyone ready?”

Everyone was.

“Let’s get a shift on.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so... this chapter was going to be actual plot but it turns out that i really wanted to write 3000 words of fluff first so that's what this chapter actually is. stay tuned for either a chapter full of plot or 3000 more words of fluff that inches the real plot just a *tiny* bit ahead


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all RIGHT so I was going to try to post this for New Year's but this chapter utterly destroyed me. plots are HARD folks. it's here now though, so... enjoy!

No matter how many alien planets Rose visited, she was always amazed by each new thing she saw. She hadn’t been to the real Rome, surprisingly enough, but the fact that there was this replica on a planet with two suns and a purple sky… it was amazing. Rose loved it. 

It didn’t take them long to walk to the Colosseum. This planet’s Colosseum wasn’t a ruin; it was a full-scale, fully finished, reproduction of the original, before two thousand years passed and people started stealing the stone for their own buildings. There were banners all along the bottom level, advertising something called the “Jewel Tones Reunion Concert.”

“Good band,” the Doctor said. “Pity what happened to them.”

“What happened?” Ryan asked. Rose thought she could guess.

“Krillitanes,” the Doctor said. “Not known for their mercy.”

The area around the Colosseum was deserted. There was not a single person on its side of the street. Rose, the Doctor, Ryan, Graham, and Yaz stood at the edge of the sidewalk facing it, preparing themselves for what was to come.

“Looks weird,” Yaz said. “I mean, in pictures, the original’s never this alone.”

“I guess they’ve made their presence known,” Ryan said.

“They’re not using it as a front?” Rose asked. “Like the school?”

“They’re not really trying to be subtle this time,” the Doctor said. “They weren’t really trying to colonize Earth in the same way that they’re colonizing here.”

“Makes sense,” Rose said. “So what’s our plan?”

The Doctor flashed a grin at Rose.

“Bold of you to assume I have a plan,” she said. 

Ryan and Yaz snickered.

“All right,” Rose said, raising her eyebrows at the group. “Guess the plan’s up to me, then. Where are the other Doctor and Donna?”

“Not quite here yet,” the Doctor said. “They’re going to be trying to go to a concert. Oh, I think I even dressed up for this one.”

“You dressed up?” Rose asked.

“Oi, I did my hair!” the Doctor said. “It took  _ time _ .”

“In my universe you were a right pain about your hair,” Rose said. “Lost it all, mind, as you got older.”

“Did I?” the Doctor asked. “Oh, no. I loved that hair. Still do, really. Can’t wait to see it again.”

“Not to interrupt,” Graham said, “but were we coming up with a plan?”

“Right,” the Doctor said. “Plan. Rose, were you planning a plan?”

“You’re impossible,” Rose said fondly. She brushed a loose strand of hair out of her eyes. “Yeah, all right.” She pointed at the Colosseum’s entrance. “So they go in through there?”

“Yep,” the Doctor said. 

“We can’t go after them,” Rose said. “We don’t want too much overlap between us, right?”

“And you have to stay with me,” the Doctor said. “He can’t remember seeing you.”

“And I’ll want to be careful with Donna,” Rose said. “She didn’t know my name when I met her in that one universe. I might give her a fake one. Do you think I look different enough?”

“Your hair is different,” the Doctor said.

“Wait, what  _ one universe _ ?” Graham asked. “How many are there?”

“This is too complicated,” Ryan said. “Rose. Why is your life so complicated?”

“Better than the alternative,” Rose said. “What aren’t we thinking of? Defenses, Doctor?”

“I’m not sure,” the Doctor said. “I assume there’s something, but I don’t remember having a problem with it.” But then she smacked her forehead. “Oh, no, I get it now! I’m so stupid sometimes.We didn’t come across any defenses because  _ we _ were disabling them. All right, that gives us a goal. We’ve got to find and disable the defenses. Everyone in?”

“What do we do?” Yaz asked.

“Don’t know yet,” the Doctor said. She pulled her sonic screwdriver out of her coat pocket and waved it in the direction of the Colosseum. “Oh, we’re too far away. All right, then. Better wing it.”

“And here we waste all my planning efforts,” Rose said. 

“I knew it was too good to be true,” Graham said. “Why is it that we never have a plan?”

“You ask too many questions,” Ryan said. “Come on. Let’s go.”

As they crossed the street, Rose pulled out her own sonic screwdriver and gave the entrances a scan. All the gaps in the walls of the Colosseum were filled with invisible shields, biogenetically engineered so that only a Krillitane could pass. 

“I’m going to manipulate the shields,” she murmured to the Doctor. “Can I scan your DNA? Wait, no, I just need general Time Lord. Suppose that’s me, now. Yaz, can I scan your DNA?”

“What for?” Yaz asked.

“Need an example of human DNA for the biogenetic shields,” Rose explained. “So I can beam it over there.”

“Sonic screwdriver can’t do that,” the Doctor said.

“Yours can’t, maybe,” Rose said. “We had a long time in that parallel universe, Doctor. Not much to do sometimes. Screwdrivers got upgraded.”

“Fair enough,” the Doctor said.

“So, can I scan your DNA?” Rose asked Yaz again. They were almost to the Colosseum.

“Sure,” Yaz said. 

Rose waved the screwdriver in her direction, then pointed it at her own hand, and then flicked it towards the Krillitane shields. 

“We can’t go in yet, can we?” she asked. “Got to wait for the others?”

“We’d better wait just inside,” the Doctor said. “We can’t let them see us yet.”

“We can get through now?” Graham asked.

“Yes,” Rose said. “The shields should recognize Time Lord and human DNA.”

They were standing just in front of the hulking archway. Rose noticed that, inside the structure, the walls were made of some sort of shiny black material, with black light overhead; it was a strange contrast from the dusty stone of the outside.

“Does that pass for classical on Barcelona?” she asked.

“Pretty much, yeah,” the Doctor said.

“All right, well, I guess I’ll go first,” Rose said, and she stepped through the shield. An icy cold shock shot through her, and she gasped, but then she passed through into the semi-darkness of the structure and turned around to see the other four, almost silhouettes against the crowd behind.

“You all right?” Graham asked.

“Well, she didn’t die,” the Doctor said, and she stepped smartly through, her coat flaring out behind her. She shivered. “Oh, that’s a bit of a shock. Come on, you lot. We haven’t got much time.”

The others stepped through, all jumping a bit at the cold.

“Don’t want to do that again,” Yaz said.

“Well, we’ve got to get back out somehow,” Rose said. “Do you want to scout a bit? See if we can spot any Krillitanes?”

“We should split up,” Graham said. “We’re way too conspicuous all together.”

“You sure?” the Doctor asked. “Could be dangerous.”

“When isn’t it?” Ryan asked.

“All right,” the Doctor said. “Rose, with me?”

“You got it,” Rose said, slipping her hand into the Doctor’s. 

“We’ll go this way,” Graham said, pointing over his shoulder. “Anything we should look out for?”

“Anything that doesn’t look like it belongs in a concert hall,” the Doctor said. “And stay away from the Krillitanes. They  _ will _ kill you. And if you see me and Donna-- I don’t know. I suppose the three of you won’t do much harm. Just-- try not to mention us too much.” She turned to Rose. “The two of us should find more ways to mess with their technology.”

“Works for me,” Rose said, holding up her sonic screwdriver with a grin. 

“Meet back here if we don’t see each other?” Yaz asked.

“Yep,” the Doctor said. 

Yaz, Graham, and Ryan set off in the other direction, and Rose and the Doctor both immediately scanned the area.

“Tunnels,” the Doctor said.

“Yep,” Rose said.

“It’s sort of a backstage type of area, if I remember correctly,” the Doctor said. She was speaking just slightly under her breath; they had yet to see a Krillitane, but Rose was sure that they couldn’t be far away. “Too small to be comfortable for the Krillitanes, but they’re using it for what they can.”

“Krillitane oil?” Rose asked.

“Exactly,” the Doctor said.

Without another word, they started walking. They held for a moment underneath an arch that led into the center of the Colosseum.

“The entrance to the tunnel is just down there,” the Doctor said, “but we have to run. If the Krillitanes see us, we’re dead.”

“Let’s go, then,” Rose said, tightening her grip on the Doctor’s hand. 

The Doctor gave her that exhilarated grin that seemed to be the same no matter what her face was.

“ _ Run _ ,” she said, and run they did, sprinting together across the stone floor into the sunlight, leaping down from the railings to the stage, and dropping right at the entrance of one of the tunnels. A quick scan revealed that it was guarded by the same shields as the outside, and so Rose did the same thing she’d done before, scanning her DNA and using it to reprogram the shield.

“Should’ve kept a human with us,” she muttered as she and the Doctor passed through. 

“Just give it the scan you did before,” the Doctor said.

“Yeah, maybe,” Rose said, fiddling with the settings. “Thing is, don’t know if I saved it.” She looked up. This tunnel was a lot less sleek than the Colosseum itself; the walls were the same stone as the exterior, and it was lit only by bare bulbs strung along the top.

“Suppose it really is backstage,” she said. Looking out from the mouth of the tunnel, she saw a few hulking dragonflies, at least three times as long as she was tall, resting in the center of the arena. They didn’t seem to have noticed her and the Doctor, which Rose was somewhat surprised by, but then again, they were fairly small in comparison. “They weren’t that big last time, were they?” she asked.

“Not really,” the Doctor said. “It’s always sort of funny when they’ve just arrived someplace. They haven’t evolved to suit Barcelona yet. They actually photosynthesize these days. That’s why they’re all sitting out in the sun. Probably half-asleep.”

“All the same,” Rose said, “we’d better get out of their way.”

“Brilliant,” the Doctor said. “Down the corridor we go.”

They started walking down the ramp. They were just reaching a place where the ramp ended at a perpendicular hallway when voices echoed down to them.

“What’s this?” asked one. 

Rose sort of remembered this voice, a bit of an echo from long ago… but then there was the telltale buzz of a sonic screwdriver, and another, almost painfully familiar, voice said, “You can’t come through here. Hasn’t been calibrated for human.”

Suddenly, Rose felt like she was twenty again, had just set out on another round of adventures in the TARDIS with the Doctor, with no idea where they were going next. Or like she was thirty, clutching a bouquet and walking down the aisle towards a bright smile and white Converse (because of course he’d worn them to get married in, no matter what Rose’s mum had had to say about it). Or like-- well, there were a lot of memories rushing at her, a lot of feelings, all at once. Happiness, relief, grief, all washing over her. She didn’t hear what was being said up above for a moment, but she did feel the new Doctor’s hand in hers and a whispered, “You all right?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Sorry. Um-- should we keep going?”

“Might as well.” Rose could hear the concern in the Doctor’s voice. She kept her hand in the Doctor’s, tethering her to  _ now _ , to the way her life was, instead of the way her life had been.

And they continued down the hallway, ducking into the first door they found. 

“No oil here,” the Doctor said, looking around. 

Rose was still a little dazed, but she pushed that to the back of her mind and looked around. It looked like they were in a dressing room, with a mirror, makeup table, screen, and a few chairs. Makeup was still scattered across the table, and a few dresses were hanging over the screen. Something approaching a guitar was propped against the wall in the corner.

“Are they using this room for anything?” Rose asked.

“Doesn’t look like it,” the Doctor said.

Rose took a few steps to peek around the screen. There was nothing behind it but a stool and a few more dresses. 

“Nothing here,” she said. 

She heard the door to the room open, and she quickly stepped behind the screen under the pretense of examining the dresses. They were nice, part of her registered. They had clearly belonged to someone with money and a flair for the dramatic. But the rest of her was busy listening to what was going on on the other side of the screen, and therefore didn’t care. 

“Oh, hello,” the Doctor-- the old Doctor-- was saying. “What are you doing here?”

“Same as you, I imagine,” the new Doctor said. “Investigating. I’m a-- journalist. Here with my wife. Who is also a journalist. And our-- interns.”

“Where are they?” the old Doctor asked.

“Upstairs,” the new Doctor said. “Sorry, I’m being rude. Should’ve introduced myself. Jane Smith. And my wife, er-- not Jane Smith. Jessie. Jessie Smith. She’s back there. Shy.”

“Uncommon name, for Barcelona,” the old Doctor remarked. 

“Oh, we’re not from around here,” the new Doctor said.

“Neither am I,” the old Doctor said. “I don’t suppose the two of you had anything to do with the shields up there letting me through.”

“Oh, that was Jessie,” the new Doctor said. Rose waited with bated breath, trying to figure out how the Doctor was going to explain this one away.

“Jessie programmed the biometric shields to accept Time Lord DNA?” the old Doctor asked. 

Rose could almost see the look on the new Doctor’s face as she realized she couldn’t keep this up.

“Oh, it was worth a shot,” the new Doctor said. “I’m not Jane Smith. No one’s  _ actually _ called Jane Smith. But it was going to be convenient if you’d believed me. And Jessie’s not shy, and that’s not her real name, but when you see her, it’s going to be like you’ve seen a ghost, and also like she’s seen a ghost, and that’s a lot more ghosts than I want to deal with in one day.”

“Are you supposed to be making any sense?” the old Doctor asked.

Behind the screen, Rose snickered.

“What was that?” the old Doctor asked. His voice broke a little, and Rose knew the game was up.

“Jessie,” the new Doctor said. 

“Your ghost wife Jessie,” the old Doctor said.

“Yep. That’s her. Ghost wife Jessie.”

“Oh, shut up,” Rose finally said, standing up and stepping out from behind the screen. “Honestly, how are  _ either  _ of you still alive?” 

“We’re like cats,” the new Doctor said. “Except with thirteen plus lives.”

Rose was about to fling a remark back, but then she flicked her eyes to the other Doctor, and her breath left her throat. He looked exactly the same as he remembered, the gelled-up hair that he insisted was natural, skinnier than should be allowed in a brown pinstriped suit, and, right now, an absolutely gobsmacked facial expression. 

“I’m not a ghost,” Rose said, her heart in her throat.

“I can see that,” the old Doctor said. “You’re-- different.”

Rose nodded.

“Older,” she said. 

“Looking good for it,” the old Doctor said.

“Thanks,” Rose said.

He took a step forward.

“Can I hug you?”

Suddenly, Rose  _ did _ feel shy. She ducked her head in a nod. He pulled her into his arms, and she hugged him back, feeling the way that her body had always fit into his, her head nestled into his neck, his arms securely around her waist. 

She got the sense that he would have held her like that for hours, and she wouldn’t have stopped him, except for the fact that the new Doctor was tapping on her shoulder, saying, “Sorry to interrupt, but we do have a Krillitane army to stop, and at least four humans upstairs running around doing who-knows-what.”

Rose stepped out of the hug. 

“So, do we have a plan?” she asked.

“I thought you were doing the plans!”

As it turned out, none of them needed to come up with a plan. Just then, an alarm sounded, reverberating in Rose’s ears from all sides, and all three of them immediately started running. 

They came up to the top of the tunnel and shot out into the bright arena. The Krillitanes were gathered in a circle, with one flying in menacing circles above. It was almost funny, the Krillitane’s reptile legs dangling from its stick-like dragonfly body, but Rose had a bad feeling about what was in the center of the circle.

Sure enough, the Krillitane flying above was calling out, “They are here, just as planned! We must find their Lords!”

“Planned?” the old Doctor asked.

“I knew getting in here was too easy,” the new Doctor said. “Let’s get this over with.”

Before Rose could say anything, she started walking forward with resolve on her face and cried out, “Oi! Back away from my friends!”

“She’s a bit of a loose cannon,” the old Doctor said. “Am I really that self-righteous?”

“Yep,” Rose said. “Come on, then. We go down together.”

The three of them approached the circle. Yaz, Graham, Ryan, and Donna Noble were in the center, all looking a little scared. Graham waved to Rose and the Doctors.

“We like your friend Donna,” he called out. 

“Glad to hear it,” the new Doctor said. “Any idea what’s going on here?”

“They keep talking about a plan,” Yaz said.

“I’ve got a plan,” Donna said. “A plan to punch their lights out. Doctor, you know they’re planning to kill all the Barcelonans?”

“Is that the right plural?” Ryan asked.

“Don’t we have bigger problems?” Yaz replied.

“Who’re your friends?” the old Doctor asked.

“Ryan, Graham, and Yaz. They’re my fam!”

“Your  _ what _ ?” 

“Not important,” the new Doctor said. To the Krillitanes, she called, “You said there was a plan. What’s the plan?”

“This is the plan!” called the Krillitane overhead. “We have summoned you… and now we will assimilate you!”

“ _ Oh _ ,” the new Doctor said. “ _ You _ brought the TARDIS here.”

“We did,” the Krillitane said. 

“And now you want to take all of our DNA,” the new Doctor finished.

And then Rose realized something.

“Doctor,” she said. “They  _ have _ our DNA. I scanned it for them.”

She watched understanding dawn on both Doctors’ faces as they realized what had just happened.

“Thanks for the symbiotic nuclei,” the lead Krillitane taunted. “They’ll be wonderful for our children.”

Rose swallowed. They were trapped. Two Doctors. Rose, now with Time Lord anatomy. Four humans who had homes and families and friends waiting for them on Earth. All at the mercy of the Krillitanes. 

But-- maybe there was a chance. They had scans of the DNA, but they hadn’t had the chance to actually graft those into their offspring yet. Trying to be inconspicuous, Rose reached into her pocket for her sonic screwdriver. To cover up the buzz, she cried, “You can’t have us!” The Krillitanes laughed, but Rose had gotten what she wanted: the power of the Colosseum was emanating from one place: a generator underneath the center of the arena. Which, fortunately, was where she was. She buzzed the screwdriver again, hoping that the extended range she had programmed in would work. 

A moment later, she saw the black light glowing from the stands go dark. Another scan confirmed what she thought: the shields were down. The generator was out. The Colosseum had no power. 

The Krillitanes didn’t seem to have noticed. Of course, they were all circled around the humans. They weren’t out of the woods yet. 

“Lead them underground,” the new Doctor said under her breath. “You got that, everyone? We’ve got to lead them underground and find a way to seal them in.”

“What for?” Donna asked. “Also, who are you, and how do you know him?”

“There’s no time,” the old Doctor said, exasperated.

“I’m Jane Smith,” the new Doctor said. “Here with my wife, and the rest of my fam. Now, can we please start leading them underground? And Rose, look for that oil.”

“Got it,” Rose said. 

Without another word, the new Doctor broke out running. She was soon in the tunnel and out of sight. Rose looked across the arena and saw a near-identical tunnel on the other side; she held up her sonic screwdriver, yelled, “The DNA scans are on here!” and raced for the tunnel. She heard a couple of Krillitanes following her, their massive dragonfly wings beating, but she had a head start, and soon enough she was half-sliding down the ramp, adrenaline pumping in her veins. She kept her sonic buzzing, unlocking each door as she passed, punching them in. She didn’t see anything interesting in the first few, but, just as she thought she was couldn’t possibly keep up the speed, she spotted a huge room absolutely stuffed to the brim with metal drums. 

“Jackpot,” she whispered, and ran inside. She wasted no time in moving to stand behind some of the drums. The first Krillitane came in just as she was sonicking one open, and she cupped her left hand and used it to splash oil in the Krillitane’s eerily human face. The Krillitane screeched and backed away, and Rose felt accomplished, even if she didn’t have a vessel for the oil.

She kept splashing the Krillitane, but she knew it was a short-term solution. More were lining up behind it, and eventually, they were all going to break through. Fortunately, she didn’t have to keep it up for very long. The old Doctor came running in, completely out of breath, holding two squirt guns.

“Used these in Pompeii,” he explained. “I’ve got enough for everyone.”

Rose filled the offered squirt gun with oil and began shooting the approaching Krillitanes. They shrank back, and Rose and the Doctor both managed to slide past them, shooting like action movie stars (if action movies involved squirt guns with oil instead of real guns with bullets) as they ran back up the corridor. Finally, they emerged back in the arena, and Rose took out her sonic screwdriver again. She pointed it down at the ground, closing her eyes tight and hoping this would work. She felt a thrum as the power in the Colosseum came back on. She scanned the shields. As she had hoped, they had been reset: they were now programmed to let no creature through. 

Rose looked around to make sure both Doctors and all the humans were aboveground with her. Sure enough, they were. Everyone seemed to be congregating by one of the tunnels, and Rose moved to join them.

“They should be trapped,” she said. “I’ve reset the shields.”

“We think we destroyed their controls,” Yaz said. 

“ _ We’re _ not trapped in here, are we?” Donna asked. “Weren’t those shields doing a very good job of  _ not  _ trapping us in here before?”

“Oh, we’ll get out,” the old Doctor said. “We always do.”

“Oh!” the new Doctor said. “I can summon my TARDIS. It’s not something I do often-- tends to go fairly badly wrong, actually-- but I think this once it’ll be all right.” 

“You have a TARDIS?” Donna asked. “Who  _ are _ you?”

“Second-to-last of the Time Lords,” the new Doctor said. “Give or take.” She pulled a TARDIS key out from under her shirt and pointed her sonic at it. The key began to glow, and a moment later, her TARDIS materialized in front of them.

“Oh, the panel’s different,” the old Doctor said with dismay. “You didn’t change it all up, did you?”

“Oi, she did it herself,” the new Doctor said. “Anyway, you haven’t even seen the inside yet.”

They all piled in. Rose entered last, following the old Doctor in entirely so that she could see his reaction. He seemed more and more indignant the further he walked, finally exclaiming, “There’s no seats! Where are people supposed to sit?”

Rose burst out laughing. The Doctors both stared at her.

“Don’t look at me like that!” she said. “It’s  _ funny _ ! You two can’t get along and you’re the  _ same person _ !”

“What do you think it’s like inside my head?” the old Doctor demanded. Rose only laughed harder.

“They’re the  _ same person _ ?” Donna asked.

“It’s complicated,” the old Doctor said. “That’s not the important part. The important part is that my nice coral shapes have been replaced by  _ space crystals _ .”

“Oi!” the new Doctor exclaimed. “I happen to like the space crystals, thank you very much. And you know she can hear you.”

The TARDIS burbled in the background.

Still indignant, the new Doctor started her usual dance around the console. The old Doctor followed, poking at the hourglass, peering at the hologram of the TARDIS’s exterior, and outright scoffing at the biscuit thing.

“What?” the new Doctor asked. “I like biscuits. Rose, get the stabilizers?”

Rose obliged, and a moment later, they landed just outside the Colosseum.

“We should be right next to your TARDIS,” the new Doctor said. She glanced at Rose, then at the old Doctor. “Don’t suppose the two of you want to explore Barcelona with us first, though.” 

“Well,  _ I  _ didn’t come all the way here just to fight some weird dragonfly lizards,” Donna said. “Let’s shop!”

Ten minutes later, Rose was sitting with the two Doctors in a streetside cafe, picking at some strange purple pastry. The others were off exploring-- Donna and Graham had immediately been distracted by a street full of boutiques, and Yaz and Ryan had decided to check out a museum of Earth Rome history (they liked to go to museums about Earth and point out mistakes).

“So, Barcelona,” the old Doctor said. “Live up to your expectations?”

Rose smiled.

“Didn’t expect a copy of Rome,” she said. “Also, you were a bit late to deliver on this one.”

“How late?” he asked.

Rose glanced at the new Doctor.

“You forget all this, right?”

She nodded.

“It’s been eighty years,” Rose admitted. “But, Doctor, you’re going to see me again. Soon, I think.”

“And Donna can’t know,” the new Doctor added. “She doesn’t know that she met Rose Tyler today, and it has to stay that way.”

“But she saw you,” the old Doctor said. “Didn’t she?”

“You’re both going to meet me again,” Rose said, “and she can’t know who I am until that happens.”

“Ah, well. I suppose I’m just going to forget this anyway,” the old Doctor said. He looked at Rose. “You’re happy?”

Rose nodded.

“For eighty years now,” she assured him.

He looked at the other Doctor.

“I’m glad you have someone,” he said. 

“I’ve got a whole fam of someones,” she said. 

But Rose remembered this Doctor, how lonely he was. How he carried the burden of a lost people on his back.

“You’re not going to be alone forever, Doctor,” she said, covering one of his hands with hers. She felt a pang of sadness that she couldn’t go with him, but then she thought of the years she’d spent with the human Doctor, and she looked at the new Doctor next to her, who was looking back at her with shining eyes, and she knew that she wouldn’t change a thing.

Not to mention that if she did, her brand new time senses were telling her that it might cause the collapse of two universes.

“Rose Tyler,” the old Doctor said. “Time Lord. You bear it well.”

“Well,” Rose said, smiling, “I learned from the best.”

As the two suns were setting, leaving unearthly layers of color in the sky, everyone convened back at the two TARDISes. Donna and Graham were both laden with shopping bags, while Ryan and Yaz were talking over each other in their efforts to describe what the Barcelonans thought ancient Rome was like. 

“I’m not going to see you again,” Rose told the old Doctor. “I mean, unless something really unexpected happens.”

He nodded. 

“But you’re happy,” he said.

“And you will be too,” Rose said. She glanced back at the new Doctor, who was asking Graham and Donna what they had bought. “At least, I think so.”

“Don’t worry about me,” the old Doctor said. “I’m always fine.”

Rose hugged him. It felt like an ending, but that was okay.

“Have fun on your adventures,” she said.

“You, too,” he said, giving her the smile she had always loved, the one that looked like it was just barely stopping his love from spilling all the way out. “You, too, Rose Tyler.” He turned. “Donna? We’re going.”

“Just a second, Doctor,” Donna said.

“See you soon, Rose,” the old Doctor said.

“Goodbye, Doctor,” Rose replied. 

He disappeared into the TARDIS. The minute he was gone, Donna turned to Rose.

“I know I don’t know you,” she said, her voice quiet and urgent, “but if this is the Doctor’s future, what happens to me?”

Rose shook her head.

“I can’t tell you that,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

Donna nodded.

“I knew you’d say that,” she said. “It was worth a shot.”

And she pushed through the TARDIS door. A moment later, the old Doctor’s TARDIS phased in and out, and then it was gone, with nothing but empty alien pavement in its place. 

Rose stared for a moment while Ryan, Yaz, and Graham headed into the remaining TARDIS. She was somehow sad in advance for everything that Doctor was going to face-- seeing her again, losing her, losing Donna, regenerating, going through the periods of loneliness and sorrow that the new Doctor had mentioned in passing. 

She felt a hand on her elbow. She turned to see the new Doctor-- the only Doctor, now-- looking at her with an expression of deep concern, her eyes searching Rose’s. 

“I love you,” Rose said, suddenly, turning to face the Doctor fully. She couldn’t quite say what had prompted it, except that the way the Doctor was looking at her-- there was just so much love directed at her, and Rose felt like she had to give it back. “Every version of you.”

With the same earnest concern, the Doctor replied, “I love you, too, Rose.”

Rose smiled and took the Doctor’s hand, entwining their fingers. 

“So,” she said. “Where to next?”

“You tell me.” 

And they walked into the TARDIS together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to include more of both ten and Donna but the logistics of including both of them were a NIGHTMARE, it turns out. I'm sure this contradicts canon at least once but please ignore that in favor of caring about Graham and Donna going shopping together, which is my new favorite concept. 
> 
> and also! if you have any ideas for this fic going forward, feel free to let me know! currently I have no idea what the next chapter will hold, and I'll think of something no matter what, but I'm all for audience participation here :-D if I'm going to publish near-unedited chapters in real time you all might as well get something out of it


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> has it been a million years since i posted a chapter? yes. do i have ideas for at least the next two chapters after this? HELL YEAH

It was a couple of days after Barcelona. The group had been hanging out on a beach on a planet where the oceans reflected an orange sky-- Graham had said that he felt they needed a break from all the monsters and aliens, and the Doctor had done her best to oblige. Of course, Rose was never one to argue with spending time on an alien beach with the Doctor and her friends-- quite the opposite. She had spent her time lying on the lavender sand in a TARDIS-generated swimsuit, making fun of the Doctor’s ridiculous Lisa Frank board shorts with Graham while Ryan, Yaz, and the Doctor splashed around in the waves, and building a massive sand castle with the Doctor, complete with turrets, windows, and working plumbing. 

Rose was as happy as she’d ever been: she had friends, she had the Doctor, she had unfamiliar sand in her hair and a brand new sky above her head. She couldn’t keep the smile off her face as she watched the sun set in layers of blue and purple, with her hair blowing in her face and the Doctor’s arm around her waist. 

“This is beautiful,” she said. “Those colors. How is it that, no matter how much I see, I never feel like I’m seeing anything I’ve seen before?”

“The universe provides,” the Doctor said. “Isn’t it brilliant?”

“Brilliant,” Rose agreed.

She didn’t sleep that night. She didn’t have to, after all. She stayed up with the Doctor, learning more about the TARDIS, which mostly meant the Doctor pointed out levers and buttons that allegedly did things while Rose laughed at her for still absently stroking bits of the TARDIS and tried to guess where they were in the time vortex based on her brand new senses. 

“Sixteenth century, passing through the Andromeda galaxy,” Rose tried, leaning with her back against the console next to where the Doctor was fiddling with some lever or something. 

“Close,” the Doctor said. “Fifteenth century. And we’re sort of on the edge of Andromeda.”

“Is ‘on the edge’ code for ‘thousands of lightyears away?’” Rose asked.

“Sort of,” the Doctor said, her expression apologetic. “Right side of the universe, though.”

“Close enough, then,” Rose said, flashing a grin at the Doctor.

“Brilliant, actually, for a beginner,” the Doctor said. “It takes years to train up a Time Lord. And I’m not exactly qualified to do the training, either.”

“Good enough for me,” Rose said. “Not sure I’m technically qualified to be a Time Lord, after all.”

“‘Course you’re qualified,” the Doctor said, turning to look Rose right in the eyes. “You’re Rose Tyler. You can do anything.”

“Thanks,” Rose said, a smile spreading across her face. “So if I’m qualified to be a Time Lord, that means you’re qualified to teach me how to be a Time Lord.”

“How do you figure?” the Doctor asked.

“I don’t know,” Rose said, laughing. “But it’s not like I can just walk into the-- Time Lord School--”

“Academy,” the Doctor corrected.

“Sure, academy-- and ask them to train me up.”

The Doctor laughed at that.

“I’d like to see their faces,” she said. 

“You said they’re back now, right?” Rose asked. “All the Time Lords?”

“Sort of,” the Doctor said. “Not really. It’s complicated. And we still don’t get along.”

“Yeah, I believe that,” Rose said.

“Oi, I’m pleasant!” the Doctor exclaimed.

“I never said you weren’t!” protested Rose. “I just said that I believe that you and the other Time Lords don’t get along.”

“They’re all boring,” the Doctor said. “And  _ no _ forgiveness when you steal a Type 40 TARDIS out of their archives.”

The TARDIS beeped. Rose felt a sort of warmth and a little bit of the urge to laugh that didn’t come from herself.

“Suppose it was worth it,” she said.

“Absolutely,” the Doctor agreed. “I’ve had so many adventures that I never would have had if I’d done what they wanted me to.”

“Never would’ve met me,” Rose said with her flirtiest grin.

“Ah, can’t say never,” the Doctor said. “Who knows what would’ve happened?”

“‘Spose we can’t know,” Rose said. “Your origin story. The one bit of time and space we can’t mess with.”

“It’s not the  _ only _ one,” the Doctor said. “There’s lots of time and space we can’t mess with. Fixed points. Like your dad.” She paused. “No, bad example, sorry. But--”

“I know,” Rose said. “Fixed points.”

“Sorry,” the Doctor said again. “I don’t really know when to stop.”

“Well, good to know that hasn’t changed,” Rose said. “So much of you never changes. It’s sort of beautiful, how you can stay yourself even when you regenerate.”

“Isn’t it?” the Doctor said. “It’s terrible, but it’s wonderful. I get to know myself all over again. Hate the dying part, though. And I sort of miss being who I was before.”

“Is that going to happen to me?” Rose asked. She tried to think about who she might be if she wasn’t her. Sure, she had changed a lot since she had first met the Doctor, but-- she hadn’t  _ regenerated _ .

“Oh, I’m not sure,” the Doctor said. “We might have to take you to the Time Lords and ask them to give you some regeneration energy. Of course, they’ll want to train you up properly. We’ll have to see. Or-- there’s a chance the TARDIS gave it to you along with the extra heart and Time Lord DNA.”

“Can she do that?” Rose asked, noticing a moment later that she’d slipped into referring to the TARDIS as “she.”

“I don’t know,” the Doctor said. “I’ve no idea what she can do. It’s brilliant.”

Rose laughed.

“You really  _ haven’t _ changed,” she said.

“We can scan you,” the Doctor said. “See if you’ve got any extra regeneration energy lying around.”

“Nah,” Rose said. “I want it to be a surprise what happens after I die. Like it is for everyone else.”

“Fair enough,” the Doctor said. “Oh, I know what we can do! I can teach you to read Gallifreyan! It’s going to take a while, though. You okay with that?”

“Sure,” Rose said. “Always need a good project.” She smiled at the Doctor, who was looking at her with excitement flaring in her eyes. On impulse, Rose pulled the Doctor close by one of her suspenders and kissed her. 

“What was that for?” the Doctor asked.

“Don’t know,” Rose said. “You’re just cute, that’s all. All excited and everything.”

The Doctor grinned. “Brilliant!” she said. “Never been cute before.”

“Oh, you’ve always been cute,” Rose said. “Did I never tell you you were cute?”

“Nope,” the Doctor said. “Said I was dorky, though.”

“Yeah, I stand by that,” Rose said with a grin, still toying with the Doctor’s suspender. “Anyway. Gallifreyan?”

“Yep,” the Doctor said. She pulled on Rose’s arm. “Come on, all the good books are in the library.”

A few hours later, Rose was sitting on a library sofa with her head on the Doctor’s shoulder, trying her hardest to sound out an incomprehensible mess of circles.

“You’re getting better,” the Doctor said. 

“Seems very like Time Lords to have such an incomprehensible language,” Rose mused. “I always figured they were all elitist.”

“Oi, that’s my home language you’re talking about,” the Doctor said.

“Doctor, the writing of your home language is read both clockwise  _ and _ right to left,” Rose said. 

“It’s a bit complicated,” the Doctor admitted. “Nothing you can’t handle, given practice.”

“I don’t mind,” Rose said. “Much better than school. All those kids, teacher yelling at me all the time. I might just learn something this time. As long as you don’t start yelling, yeah?”

“Got it,” the Doctor said. “No yelling at Rose.”

Rose smiled.

“Quite right,” she said, looking back at the book and putting her finger on a circle. “So, what’s that one say again?”

The Doctor’s hair swung all over her face as she turned her head to answer. 

By the time the TARDIS flashed its lights to tell them that the others were awake, learning Gallifreyan had devolved into sitting on the floor of the library with piles of books, the Doctor translating various pieces of history while Rose tried to find pictures or bits of English to read.

The minute the lights flashed, the Doctor sprang to her feet, only pausing to grab Rose’s hand and pull her up too. 

“Come on,” she said. “It’s time for an adventure!”

“Where are we going today?” Rose asked.

“No idea,” the Doctor said. “But I’m absolutely sure it’ll be brilliant.”And she started running, pulling Rose through the corridors to the empty console room. “Anywhere in particular you want to see?”

“Let’s ask the others,” Rose said. “Can’t let us have all the fun, yeah?”

“We all get to have all the fun!” the Doctor exclaimed. “That’s what’s  _ really _ brilliant about traveling like this.”

Rose smiled. 

“Can’t believe I get to do this again,” she said.

“Can’t believe I get to do this with you again,” the Doctor said, swinging her hand and Rose’s. 

“I can really stay with you?” Rose asked, looking at the Doctor with a more serious expression. “You’re okay with it?”

“I keep telling you,” the Doctor said, equally serious. “I am so glad to have you back, Rose Tyler. I think you’re brilliant.”

A smile on her lips, Rose kissed the Doctor. She was never going to get used to this new Doctor, how warm and soft she was, practically radiating love at every opportunity. With one hand on the Doctor’s neck and the other resting on her waist, Rose felt content and awed all at once. She loved it.

“Yaz!” came a voice. “They’re kissing!”

Rose jumped back, feeling awkward, to see Ryan in the doorway.

“You don’t have to  _ watch _ ,” Yaz said, coming up behind him.

“It’s a public place,” Ryan said, clearly embarrassed. “I wasn’t watching on purpose.”

Rose could tell she was bright red. The Doctor, of course, was immune to human senses of propriety, and therefore launched right into, “It’s the fam! Love the fam. Where do you want to go today, fam?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Ryan said.

“I’ll go anywhere,” Yaz agreed.

“All right,” the Doctor said, “let’s narrow it down. Past or future?”

“Past,” Ryan said. “We haven’t done past in a while.”

“I can get behind that,” Yaz said.

“How long ago?” the Doctor asked. “Ooh, we could go really classical. I haven’t done anything ancient in a long time. Greece? Should we do ancient Greece? Or, oh, I said I’d take you to ancient Rome!”

“I think I’ve had enough Rome for a while,” Yaz said. “Can barely look at the Colosseum.”

“Well, that wasn’t  _ always _ there,” the Doctor said, “but fair enough. Greece, then? We could see the first Olympics! Or a theatre competition.  _ Love _ Greek theatre.” She was dancing around the console as usual, resting her hands on levers and buttons as if she was about to press them, but not quite getting there. 

“Oh, we read Oedipus in school,” Yaz said. “Not my favorite, but then again, I didn’t much like the teacher.”

“Oh,  _ Oedipus _ ,” the Doctor said. “Poor Sophocles had so much trouble with that one. Did well with it, though. Really, though, the real worth is in Antigone, if you ask me. Fun fact-- in your time, people group those plays together, but they were actually written in completely different cycles. Not at all related.”

“Sounds like what a time machine is for,” Rose said.

A smile had grown on Yaz’s face.

“Agreed,” she said. “Ryan, you in?”

“Sounds good,” Ryan said. “You know where Graham is?”

“Probably having his morning eggs and bacon,” Yaz said.

“Well, we’re not leaving until we ask him,” the Doctor said. “Oh, I’m so excited! I’ll introduce you all to Sophocles. Not that he’ll recognize me, I suppose.” She shrugged.  “Regeneration. Always breeds awkward conversations.”

“Do you do that?” Yaz asked. “Go back and see people after you’ve regenerated?”

“All the time,” the Doctor said. She was cheerful as always, but Rose could sense a shadow in her demeanor. “It’s easier sometimes when they don’t recognize me. You know, I got to be good friends with Donna Noble in another body. She thought I was human, of course. But still. Good fun for me. Got to pretend to be human and everything.”

Rose slipped her hand into the Doctor’s. 

“Come on, then,” she said, in her best tone of support. “Sophocles.”

And just like that, the shadow was gone, and the Doctor was back. 

“Sophocles,” she agreed. “Brilliant. Where’s Graham?”

Ten minutes later, they had found not only Graham, but an entire section of the TARDIS wardrobe dedicated to various ancient outfits. The Doctor, as always, refused to wear anything other than what she wore every day, but Rose had always loved dressing up and doing her hair and everything. Really, it was half the fun. This time, she wound up with a sky-blue garment draped loosely around her body and belted at the waist, and then she did her hair while Yaz and Ryan got completely tangled up in fabric trying to pick out colors and Graham, half-asleep and with a cup of coffee in one hand, refused to change his clothes on principle, saying that pants had always been good enough for him, and they’d be good enough for the Greeks. All of which was to say, it was probably an hour before they actually left.

As soon as they landed, Rose realized with a jolt that being on Earth felt familiar to all her new senses-- she wasn’t skilled enough to quite get a handle on time or place, but she had an overwhelming sense of  _ home _ .

Of course, they were as far away from her original home as ever.

“Bit of a problem,” the Doctor said, looking at the TARDIS screen. “Not a big one, but we’re not exactly in Athens.”

“Where are we, then?” Yaz asked.

“The island Lesbos,” the Doctor said. “Few hundred years early. No big deal.”

“What, is that an island full of lesbians?” Ryan asked. “‘Cause I don’t know if Graham and I will fit in.”

“No, it’s a real island!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Although they did name lesbians after it, I suppose. Well, and right about now is a good time for that. But there are men here too!”

“Wait,” Yaz said. “When is this? Is Sappho here? Do we get to meet Sappho?”

“Yaz, you should have just told us if you wanted to meet Sappho,” the Doctor said. “We’d’ve come on purpose.” She checked her screen again. “But yes, it’s about then.”

“Who’s Sappho?” Ryan asked.

“A poet, right?” Graham asked. “Don’t know much about her. Grace had a book.”

“Not much survived to your time,” the Doctor said. “Good thing we’ve got the entire universe through our front door.” She ran to the door. Rose followed after, and Yaz and Ryan followed after her. Graham stayed put. “What do you say? Want to take a look?” She cracked the door open, and bright sunlight poured in.

“You’re so dramatic,” Rose teased. 

“‘Course I am,” the Doctor said. “Wait ‘til you’ve had thousands of years to practice.”

Rose shuddered. 

“Not sure I fancy that,” she said. “It’ll be a simple entrance for me, thanks.” And she pushed past the Doctor, running out onto a grassy hill. She blinked in the bright sunlight as the others followed. As her eyes adjusted, she noticed a few buildings not too far away, and the deep blue ocean glittering in the other direction.

“I like this,” she said, turning to the Doctor. “It should be this way everywhere, all the time.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” the Doctor said. “We might get tired of it. Need a little rain to make the sun seem so bright, yeah?”

“Well, I’m with Rose,” Graham said, looking up. “These past few days are more what I thought time travel would be like.”

“Oi, we can’t just pick the good days,” the Doctor said.

“As if the TARDIS would take us there,” Ryan said.

“She knows what we need,” the Doctor said.

“Are you going to argue forever?” Rose asked. “Or are we going to see the sights of Lesbos?”

The Doctor looked like she very well might argue forever, but then Yaz said, “Come on, you lot, let’s see the town.”

They started walking, Rose’s hand in the Doctor’s and a smile on her face.

They were halfway to the more populated area when they saw a woman walking towards them with two children, baskets on their arms. The woman looked to be about the same age as Ryan and Yaz-- just out of school, if she had been born thousands of years in the future-- and the two children were small, under ten years old, Rose guessed. They all looked surprised to see others-- the children shied away and tried to hide behind the older one, but she proved an ineffective hiding place as she actually ran towards the group.

“Who are you?” she asked, brushing black hair out of her face.

“Travelers,” the Doctor said. 

“You didn’t come from the harbor.” The woman’s brow was furrowed, 

“There’s more than one way to travel,” the Doctor said. She didn’t mention the TARDIS, but Rose was acutely aware that this woman could probably see it off in the distance.

Fortunately, she didn’t seem to-- after all, there was a whole group of people between her and the TARDIS, and Ryan was quite tall. Not to mention that she was also trying to keep track of two little kids.

“I’ve only heard of people coming here by the harbor,” she said. “But the ocean’s all around.” She smiled. “Anyway, I’m Cleis. Are you looking for anything in particular?”

“We’ve heard there’s a school of lyric poetry here,” the Doctor said. “We were curious.”

“Oh, yes!” Cleis said. “I can take you there. Of course.”

“Clay?” one of the kids asked, looking up at Cleis with wide eyes. “Are we going to get flowers?”

“Might be a change of plans,” Cleis said, looking down at him. “We’ll go later, all right?”

“All right,” the kid said. He was looking up at the group with wide eyes. Rose gave him a little wave, and he darted back behind Cleis.

“Sorry,” Cleis said. “They’re a bit jumpy.”

“Are you their sister?” Graham asked.

“No,” Cleis said. “But we’re all pretty close around here. They’re my mother’s friend’s kids.” She turned and began leading the group towards the town. 

“So have you always lived here?” Graham asked.

“Oh, yes,” Cleis said. “I’ve never left. One of these days I’m going to figure out a way to get off this island.”

“Don’t you like it here?” Yaz asked.

“Oh, I love it,” Cleis said. “But they say the world is infinite. I can’t stay here when there are so many other things to see. But you’re travelers. Surely you understand.”

“Of course,” Rose said. “I bet you’ll see some beautiful things someday, Cleis.”

“I hope so,” Cleis said. 

“So, what’s island life like?” Ryan asked.

“Quiet,” Cleis said. “We farm, we weave, we sing. Everything we need to keep ourselves happy and healthy.”

“Sounds nice,” Yaz said.

“Nice for a childhood,” Cleis said. She looked down at the kids with her. “And these little ones seem to like it. Really, I can’t complain. I do love it here. I’m just bored. I’ve been sitting in on poetry classes for years. I just need some new beauty to write about.”

“I understand,” Yaz said. “I used to feel the same way. Without so much poetry. I’m not much of a writer.”

“Well, you said you wanted to see the school,” Cleis said. “You could always come learn with us.”

“Maybe,” Yaz said. “Do you play the lyre?”

“Well, it is lyric poetry,” Cleis said. “I don’t know what else we’d play.”

Cleis led them through a doorway into a courtyard, in which a number of women were sitting in a circle, each with a strange symmetrical instrument in their laps. Rose assumed these to be lyres. One of them was using hers to accompany herself in a strange melody that was half chanted and half sung-- Rose hadn’t heard anything like it.

“This is lyric poetry?” she asked the Doctor under her breath.

“Yep,” the Doctor answered. “Isn’t it brilliant?”

“It’s interesting,” Rose said. “I think I like it.”

The song stopped, and Cleis stepped forward, the two kids staying close at her side.

“Mother,” she said, “I’ve brought some visitors.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so get ready for the sappho episode we all deserve. if chris chibnall doesn't let thirteen go back in time and meet sappho i will personally fly to the uk and fight him myself. disclaimer i know nothing about and have not been to lesbos but i have been to pompeii and it's nothing like it was in doctor who so i feel justified in portraying a horrifically inaccurate version of lesbos. especially when this happened like. hundreds of years before pompeii and we therefore know even less about it. so get ready for more of that next chapter.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this instead of doing my actual greek homework
> 
> also i'm going to revive lyric poetry and become this generation's first bard who's with me

“This is my mother,” Cleis said as one of the older women in the courtyard stepped over, cradling her lyre in one arm. “Mother, these are-- I didn’t actually get their names, but they’ve come to see the school.”

“We’re big fans of poetry,” the Doctor said. “I’m the Doctor, by the way. And these are all my friends. Rose, Yaz, Ryan, and Graham.”

“Interesting names,” the woman said. “You’re welcome to look around, if you like. Are you interested in learning lyre? I always welcome new students. I’m Sappho, by the way.”

“No  _ way _ ,” Yaz said, her mouth wide open. “You’re Sappho? I love your poetry.”

“Oh, you’ve heard of me?” Sappho asked. “I didn’t realize my work had gotten that far.”

“Farther than you know,” the Doctor said. “It’s an honor to meet you.” 

“Well, thanks,” Sappho said. She seemed nice, with laugh lines and a big smile. “I’ll ask the others if they’re willing to have you sit in on our circle, if you like.”

“I’m game,” the Doctor said. “Everyone?”

There was a general murmur of assent, and before Rose knew it, the circle in the courtyard had widened to include the five of them. Cleis left to actually pick flowers with the kids, and Rose settled in to listen. 

The poetry really was lovely. But just when Rose had let herself be lulled into a near-meditative state, listening to the words and the rhythms and the melodies surrounding her, the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver buzzed, and she jumped up, pulling Rose with her. Rose only briefly registered the strange looks from the others before she was pulled back out onto the street.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. The Doctor was walking at a brisk pace, and Rose almost had to jog to keep up. “Doctor, what’s wrong?”

“I have to go,” the Doctor said, still walking. “Something’s after us. You have to stay with the others, tell them what’s happened.” 

“What do you mean, stay with the others?” Rose asked. “Where are you going?” 

The Doctor kept walking. 

“Doctor!” Rose reached out and grabbed the Doctor’s arm, holding her in place. “What’s going on? You’re not leaving me here.”

“I have to,” the Doctor said. “I’ll be back. There’s something chasing us. I don’t know what it wants, but the TARDIS wouldn’t have alerted me if it wasn’t life-or-death. So now I’m going to go sort it out, and I’ll see you lot soon.” She pulled a few small metal balls out of her pocket and jabbed at them with her sonic. “These’ll keep translating for you while I’m gone. Give one to everyone, and keep them with you.”

“What are you going to do?” Rose asked, taking the ball.

“Lead the threat into a supernova,” the Doctor said. “Or maybe a nuclear explosion. Depends how far I can get it to follow.”

“But that sounds dangerous,” Rose said. “You can’t go into danger alone.”

“I can, I have, and I will,” the Doctor said. She wrested her arm from Rose’s grip and kept walking.

“No!” Rose ran to stand in front of the Doctor. “You don’t even know what you’re facing.”

The Doctor stilled.

“I know it’s after us,” she said. “I know it feeds off some sort of time energy, and I know it’ll hurt us if I don’t do this.”

“Why is it so sudden?” Rose asked. “Didn’t you know?”

“No,” the Doctor said. “We were moving too fast. It’s only just now gotten close. And it won’t get any closer, because I’m going to get it away from here.”

Rose took a deep breath. She remembered the battle at Torchwood, the Doctor telling her she was going back to the parallel universe, how angry she’d been. 

But this wasn’t that. Rose was older now, and a seasoned traveler, and if the Doctor was going somewhere dangerous it stood to reason that her friends should be left with someone who knew what they were doing. 

“I don’t want to lose you,” she said, taking the Doctor’s hands in her own. “You’re going to be careful?”

“I’m always careful,” the Doctor said.

“I mean it, Doctor,” Rose said. “You’ve got us waiting for you to come back. You’d better come back.”

“Rose Tyler,” the Doctor said, looking into Rose’s eyes. She kept a firm grip on Rose’s hands. “I promise you. I’ll be careful.”

“How long will you be gone?”

The Doctor hesitated. “If all goes well,” she said, “you’ll see me in five minutes. But you know how the TARDIS is. I can never say for sure.”

“I’ll be waiting,” Rose said. “Although if you take too long, I  _ will _ find a way to build my own time machine and come after you.”

“I’d expect nothing less,” the Doctor said. She kissed Rose, quick and urgent, and then she walked off, her coat flaring out behind her. Rose turned to watch.

“Is everything all right?” came a voice from behind her. Rose turned to see Cleis, now childless.

“Fine,” Rose said. “She had to go-- fix our ship. She might have to take it to the mainland for repairs. If she’s not back for a while-- is there someplace on the island we could stay?”

“Of course,” Cleis said. “You can stay at the school. We always have room for visitors.”

Rose’s mind was racing. She didn’t really expect the Doctor to be back in five minutes-- or, rather, she wasn’t about to let herself lose hope if (when) the Doctor  _ wasn’t  _ back in five minutes. She’d have to tell the others where the Doctor had gone, make sure they didn’t lose hope either, figure out where they were going to stay, what they were going to do. She had years of experience with this sort of thing, after all.

“Thanks,” she said to Cleis. “You’re very kind.”

“We try to make a habit of it,” Cleis said. “Are your friends still inside?”

Rose nodded.

“I’ll have to tell them what happened,” she said. “It was a bit of an emergency. Not planned.”

“How did she know there was something that needed fixing?” Cleis asked.

“She remembered something,” Rose said. “She’d forgotten to, er, check the mast.”

“We have people here who can repair ships,” Cleis said.

“Ours is special,” Rose said. “It’s got a new sort of navigation system.”

Cleis leveled Rose with a look.

“It’s not the ship, is it,” she said.

“No,” Rose said. “But the truth is complicated.”

“You’re worried about her,” Cleis said. “I saw. Is she going to be all right?”

“I can’t say,” Rose said. “She usually is. It’s just-- complicated, and I don’t know when she’ll be back.”

Just then, she saw Ryan, Yaz, and Graham coming out to the street. They made a beeline for Rose and Cleis.

“What’s going on?” Ryan asked.

Cleis’s eyes were still trained on Rose.

Rose took a deep breath.

“The Doctor had to go,” she said. “She said there was something chasing us, or chasing the TARDIS, and she was going to try to lead it away before it got to us. She’s going to be back as soon as she can, but that depends on whether the TARDIS decides to cooperate.”

“So we’re stuck here?” Graham asked.

“For now,” Rose said. 

“There are worse places to be stuck,” Yaz said.

“What’s a TARDIS?” Cleis asked. 

“It’s what our ship is called,” Rose said.

“The one with the fancy navigational systems?” Cleis asked.

“Yes,” Rose said. “Only it’s not-- it’s not exactly an ocean ship.”

“What other kind of ship is there?”

“Never mind that,” Graham said. “What are we going to do?”

“Cleis has offered us a place to stay,” Rose said. “If the Doctor’s not back soon, I suppose we’ll just all have to study lyric poetry with her mother.”

“Should we be worried?” Yaz asked. “About the Doctor?”

Rose hesitated.

“She’ll be all right,” she said. “Always is, yeah?”

She could tell that the others didn’t quite believe her, but no one said anything.

“Is the recitation over?” Cleis asked.

“Just wrapped up,” Ryan said. 

“Then let’s go back in,” Cleis said, “and I can show you to some of our guest rooms, and maybe you’ll join us in the courtyard later? And perhaps I can start teaching you lyre, if you like.”

“There’s a plan,” Rose said. “Seems we’ve got no choice, mind. And thank you again for your hospitality.”

“It’s really no trouble,” Cleis said. “I promise.” She smiled with such an earnestness that Rose actually believed her. “I’ve been showing new students around since I was young and my mother realized there was a use to my wanting to interrogate everyone new about their origins.”

“You haven’t interrogated us,” Yaz said, as Cleis led them back in to the courtyard.

“Well, you’ve had other things on your mind,” Cleis said. “Plus, I’m older now. Much more in control of myself. I’d be happy to interrogate you now, though. Where did you come from?”

“A place called England,” Yaz said.

“Oh, I haven’t heard of it,” Cleis said, sounding rather excited about it as she took them through an archway into the house.

“You would have,” Graham said. “It’s far away.”

“But of course, with your fancy ship, you can come from far away,” Cleis said. “Have you been a lot of places?  _ Are _ there a lot of places? There must be, if you’re from one I’ve never heard of.”

“We’ve been all over,” Ryan said. 

“And there are  _ so  _ many places to go,” Yaz added. 

Cleis showed them to a set of two rooms, and said that they were welcome to come back into the courtyard when they had settled in. She brought blankets and reading material in the form of papyrus scrolls. 

Rose thanked her and entered one of the rooms. It was mostly bare stone, with something akin to a bed in each corner. She set up her sleeping space while awkwardly trying to figure out how to interact with Yaz, setting up in the opposite corner-- so far, she was opting for strange silence.

Finally, just as Rose was about to leave to go back out to the courtyard, Yaz asked, “How worried should we really be about the Doctor?”

And suddenly Rose remembered how very  _ young _ Yaz was. She was nineteen, and Rose  _ looked _ nineteen, but nineteen was still a child compared to Rose. Rose had had years and years of various versions of the Doctor, and she was used to strange behavior and being left behind at inopportune times, but Yaz-- Yaz was just a worried young friend, stuck a long way from home without the experience needed to cope, and Rose remembered what that was like. 

So she owed Yaz honesty, because anything else would hurt too much in the long term, and honesty was what she was going to give. 

“I’m not sure,” she said, looking Yaz right in the eye. “She was trying to divert an alien threat away from us. And part of why she left so fast was that she didn’t want to put everybody in danger.” She hesitated. “And I think she really was afraid. But she’s been afraid before, and she’s always survived.” She left out the part about the Doctor hoping to be back five minutes after she left. 

Yaz took this in. She didn’t say anything for a moment. And then she said, “I don’t know if she knows we worry about her.”

“She might never know,” Rose said. “She doesn’t want to know. She doesn’t want to be worried about. Took the human Doctor almost twenty years to understand how much I worried about him, and he only managed it because of the side of his brain with all those human instincts.”

“What was the Doctor like before?” Yaz asked. “When she was a man.”

“Depends,” Rose said. “When I first met him, he was this huge ball of anger and sadness all bottled up inside a guy with a leather jacket and a buzz cut and this spark of adventure. But then when he changed, he was suddenly-- very animated, and so excited about everything. He just wanted to show me the universe, and he did.” She paused. “She hasn’t changed much, deep down inside. She’s had time to process some of the things that had just happened for the Doctor I met. But she’s still the same sort of person.”

“The funny thing is,” Yaz said, “I should be loving this right now. I’ve idolized Sappho since I was a teenager. But right now I’m too busy being worried.”

“Might as well have fun while we’re worrying,” Rose said. “I’ve always wanted to learn an instrument. Never got the chance when I was in school. Was always much more focused on gymnastics. Well, and running away from home.”

“Sorry, what?”

“Long story,” Rose said. “Come on, let’s go out to the courtyard.”

Yaz nodded in agreement, and she and Rose walked together back outside, where Cleis was sitting with a group of a few other women. She stood up when she saw Rose and Yaz. They sat down with her, and she introduced them to her friends-- “Rose and Yaz are going to study with us,” she explained. “You two, I’m teaching a beginner lyre class in about half an hour, if you want to join in.”

“I’m game,” Rose said. “Yaz?”

“Yep,” Yaz said. 

And so began their adventure. This was a slow adventure, as adventures went; Rose woke up each morning, she went to bed each night, she learned what she could and helped out when it was needed. Sometimes she turned off her translation device and tried to learn a little ancient Greek, although she always wound up turning it on again moments later. Mostly, though, she missed the Doctor, and she talked to Yaz and Ryan and Graham, and she learned how to play the lyre and write poetry. The funny thing was she hadn’t quite known who Sappho was before this, despite Yaz’s awe, but she completely understood. 

One night, a few days after their arrival, she asked Yaz what was so special about Sappho.

“I didn’t exactly finish school,” she explained, lying in the dark, a little sheepish. “All my education is a bit slapdash, and most of it is about how to put together alien technology. I didn’t really learn a lot of poetry when I was a teenager.”

“Well,” Yaz said, sounding surprisingly self-conscious, “remember how we were talking about Lesbos being where the word lesbian comes from?”

“Yeah,” Rose said, still not getting it.

“That’s because of Sappho,” Yaz explained. “Some of her surviving poems talk about loving women, we think. She was a symbol of womanly love for thousands of years. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed.”

“What do you mean?” Rose asked.

“Half the poems she’s sung to us have been about it,” Yaz said. “Plus, she’s really close with Antiope--” who was another one of the teachers, part of the main core of poets-- “and Cleis told me she’s adopted.” Yaz shrugged. “Meant a lot to me, when I was younger.”

“Huh.” Rose laughed. “Suppose figuring all that stuff out at age a hundred, I was bound to miss stuff.”

“Suppose so,” Yaz said. “‘Course, it means you didn’t have to come out to your mum.”

“Can’t imagine that,” Rose said with a smile. “Wonder what she’d say if she knew. Probably some sort of innuendo about the Doctor, given her history.”

“Your mum’s dead, right?” Yaz asked. “In the other universe?”

“Yeah,” Rose said. Her mother had died surrounded by her family. She had used her last words to tell her husband he’d better get her a proper gravestone. “Died comfortably at the ripe old age of a-woman-never-reveals-her-secrets.”

Yaz laughed.

“My mum’s always proper worried about me,” she said. “I didn’t tell her about the time travel, but I think she knows.”

“I had to tell mine,” Rose said. “First time the Doctor took me out, he meant to come back twelve hours later and wound up being back twelve  _ months  _ later.”

“Sounds interesting,” Yaz said.

“Try terrifying,” Rose said. “For my mum, anyway. I just felt bad about putting her through all that.”

“Can’t imagine what my mum’d be like,” Yaz said. “She already doesn’t trust the Doctor.”

“It’s like that, but if the Doctor was a middle-aged man who you’d only just met,” Rose said. “Anyway, I met your mum. At tea. She seemed nice. Like she cares about you.”

“She does,” Yaz said. “And I’m glad, really. She doesn’t have any  _ reason _ to trust the Doctor, after all.”

“Fair enough,” Rose said. She was thinking about her own mother now. Her mum had asked her once what would happen when she was gone. Her prediction-- Rose in a marketplace on a foreign planet, a completely different woman-- had come true, in a lot of ways. Rose could barely think what her mum would say if she could go home with a backpack full of laundry and a tongue full of stories. 

But that was only natural. People grew. They changed. And if they lived long enough, they left people behind.

“Your mum knows you love her, yeah?” she said, her words safe in the darkness.

“I think so,” Yaz said.

“Make sure,” Rose said. Now she was thinking of all the times she’d almost died and thought she wasn’t going to see her mum again. “This is a dangerous life.”

“I know,” Yaz said, sounding drowsy.

“Anyway,” Rose said. “I’ll let you sleep now. Thanks for answering my question.”

“It’s no problem,” Yaz said. “Good night.”

“Night, Yaz.”

After a week on Lesbos, Rose was increasingly worried about the Doctor. She was better at the lyre than she had been, and she’d even written a decent poem or two, and made a few friends, but she found herself restless: not counting her weeks living in London and looking for the Doctor, it had been a while since she’d stayed in one place for this long. She kept thinking about the Doctor, throwing herself into a supernova to divert a threat, all alone in the middle of space. Probably, this week for Rose had been about two minutes in the life of the Doctor, but still, Rose worried. 

She knew Ryan, Graham, and Yaz were worried too. She talked about it with Yaz, and she saw the three of them huddled in corners every so often, speaking in whispers. She didn’t try to join in. 

And through this all, life went on. 

Until one day at breakfast, Rose suddenly felt an extreme vertigo. She reached out blindly and wound up steadying herself against Yaz, who looked at her, confused.

“Sorry,” Rose said. “Having a moment.” She paused, trying to figure out the source of the dizziness.

Her time senses. Something in the space-time continuum had just gotten-- twisted, somehow.

“Something’s wrong,” she said to Yaz. The others at the table (which included Ryan and Graham, but also Cleis, Sappho, and a few others) looked up. Rose looked around. She really didn’t want to have to explain her twenty-whatever time senses to a bunch of ancient Greeks. She got up and stepped outside. She pulled her sonic screwdriver out from where she kept it in a hidden pocket and surreptitiously scanned the area. She got readings of artron energy and an error message-- there was something that the sonic screwdriver didn’t recognize. 

Immediately, it hit her. This was what the Doctor had been trying to escape. Rose didn’t know what it was, or what it wanted, but she did know that it had scared the Doctor into going off alone, and now Rose had nowhere to run and no way to fight.

This was just sinking in as Yaz, Ryan, and Graham joined her.

“What’s wrong?” Ryan asked.

“The thing the Doctor was trying to escape,” Rose said. “It’s coming after us. I don’t know what it is, but it’s messing with the timeline or something. I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“Is it dangerous?” Yaz asked. 

“It must be, or the Doctor would have taken us with her,” Rose said. She scanned again. Still an error message.

Just then, the world dimmed, and Rose looked up to see storm clouds gathering. 

“What are the chances this  _ isn’t  _ related?” Graham asked.

“Slim to none, I’d say,” Rose said.

“What’s wrong?”

Rose looked around. Cleis had joined the circle, and was now looking up at the clouds. 

“I haven’t seen a storm like this before,” she explained. “And you seem to know more than we do, and something was definitely going on earlier, so I thought I’d come ask about it.” She paused. “Actually, you’re not gods, are you?”

“No,” Rose said. “We’re just-- travelers. But we tend to attract trouble.”

“Well, right now you seem to have attracted Zeus,” Cleis said.

“Sounds like trouble to me,” Ryan said.

For a moment, Cleis looked like she was going to argue, but she seemed to reconsider.

“Probably,” she agreed. “So, what’s going on, and is there anything I can do?”

“It’s complicated,” Rose said. “Our friend-- remember, the Doctor? She went to try and deal with a threat, and it looks like the threat’s coming here.” She didn’t let herself think about what that might mean, the cause and effect of what would have happened for something the Doctor was heading off to come here.

Thunder rolled out above them.

“Inside,” Rose said. “Cleis, is there anywhere underground here?”

“We have cellars,” Cleis said.

“Get everyone in the cellars,” Rose said. “The Doctor said whatever this was was tracking the TARDIS. It’s after some sort of time energy. Everyone who lives here should be safe as long as you stay hidden.” She looked at Ryan, Yaz, and Graham. “I can’t make the same promise for you three.”

Cleis looked between the four of them, then said, “I’ll round people up.” She was gone in a flash, and Rose tried to think what to do next.

“A shield,” she said. “I need to make a shield of some sort. There’s artron energy approaching. I might be able to solidify it and turn it back against-- against the atmosphere, I suppose.”

“If you think it’ll work,” Graham said, “do it.”

“You three need to go inside with everyone else,” Rose said. “You have to stay safe.”

“No,” Yaz said. “We’re with you. We’ve said this to the Doctor, and we’ll say it to you too.”

Rose looked at her, surprised. 

“You all feel this way?” she asked.

“Yep,” Ryan said. 

“Absolutely,” Graham agreed.

“It’s not safe,” Rose said.

“It’s not safe for you either,” Ryan said. “Just because you’re a Time Lord doesn’t mean you can’t get hurt.”

“Right, then,” Rose said. “Better stop wasting time.” She raised her screwdriver to the heavens, hoping that her plan would work.

She felt the energy stabilize, harden into a shell around the whole island. Rain began to fall, pelting down, but instead of soaking the landscape, it sizzled and evaporated on the shield. Rose kept her screwdriver lifted, buzzing, not knowing what might happen if she stopped for even a moment. She was vaguely aware of Cleis coming back outside, and Yaz, Ryan, and Graham standing around her, and a piercing sense of fear coming from deep within her, but every ounce of her concentration was focused on maintaining this shield.

Something was pressing down on it. The bonds between her screwdriver and the artron energy were becoming less stable. Rose screwed her eyes shut, not knowing what would happen next--

And then she heard it. Above the thunder, the wind, the voices around her, the sound of the TARDIS engines sounded. She opened her eyes and saw that dark blue box materialize in front of her. She wanted to cry, right then, just start bawling on the ground and not get up, but she knew there was no time for that, especially when the Doctor ran out, yelled, “Everyone get in the TARDIS!” and grabbed Rose’s arm. 

Rose let the Doctor tug her into the TARDIS. She only got a moment to appreciate the relative quiet and warm light before the Doctor brought her to the console and said, “It’s after us.”

“I know,” Rose said. “What is it?”

“No, it’s after  _ us _ ,” the Doctor said. “Time Lords. I can’t explain fast enough, but it’s a four-dimensional creature. We can’t perceive it, but it sees us as a threat.”

“Are we a threat?”

“Well, I don’t know!” the Doctor said, and she slammed her hand onto the lever to launch the TARDIS into the time vortex. “But I’d like to find a way to become not a threat that  _ doesn’t  _ involve us dying. Which means we have to hide.”

“What do you mean?” Rose asked, wishing that she could just pull the Doctor into a hug and not leave it.

“There’s this thing the TARDIS can do,” the Doctor said. “Basically, it’s going to make us human for a bit. It’ll give us new memories and put the old ones in a couple of watches. I’m going to take us back to Sheffield, so everyone else can keep on with their lives and check up on us every so often.” She pressed a few buttons, and a headset descended from the TARDIS ceiling. Another button, and two pocket watches with Gallifreyan writing popped out of the biscuit dispenser. She handed one to Rose. 

Rose held up the watch, trying to read what it said. A moment later, the Doctor’s words set in, and she looked up.

“You want us to lose our memories?” she asked.

“It’s not forever,” the Doctor said. “Only long enough for the creatures to forget about us. We’ll leave instructions with the others, and when it’s time, they’ll open the watches.”

“I only just got you back,” Rose said. “You want me to forget?”

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor repeated. “I wish there were another way.”

“What about the others?” Rose asked.

“They’ll be fine,” the Doctor said. “They’re not Time Lords. And we won’t be either.”

Rose looked back at the doorway, where the others were catching their breath. Ryan, Yaz, Graham… and Cleis? Her next argument left her mind entirely.

“Doctor,” she whispered, “we have a stowaway.”

The Doctor looked.

“Oh, no,” she said. “Cleis, right? Cleis, we can’t go back now. It’s too dangerous. How do you feel about Sheffield?”

“I’ve never heard of it,” Cleis said.

“You wouldn’t have,” the Doctor said. “I’m so sorry, Cleis.”

“You can get me back later, right?” Cleis asked.

“Of course,” the Doctor said. “But I don’t know how long it’ll be.”

“That’s okay,” Cleis said. “It’s my fault, anyway. You yelled for everyone to get into the box and I just sort of ran.” She looked around. “Also, what sort of box is this? It’s much--”

“Bigger on the inside, I know,” the Doctor said. “I’m sorry, I haven’t got time.” Cleis started to say something else, but the Doctor turned back to Rose, catching the headset from the TARDIS ceiling. “You first,” she said. “So I can explain everything to the others.”

Rose took hold of the headset.

“Is it going to hurt?” she asked.

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor said, “but yes. Quite a bit. If it helps, you won’t remember after.”

Rose shuddered.

“Doesn’t help,” she said, “but thanks.”

And against every single fiber of her being, she put the headset on and closed her eyes. Electric shocks surged through every part of her body, rewriting her cells, her memories were unraveling, her thoughts were unraveling, pain shooting through every single atom…

And then there was silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so!!! many fun developments!!! i have vague plans for everything new that happened in this chapter i promise... i also feel like i didn't give sappho her due plot but given that i've also essentially kidnapped her daughter... we'll be seeing her again i guess... i'm not sure whether adding a random new member to team tardis is entirely advisable but i have my reasons and also i'm a lesbian so i can do what i want


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hell YEAH i finished this before midnight! happy valentine's day!!!

Rosie’s alarm went off. 

She reached blindly for her phone. It was 7:30. She didn’t have to be at work until 9. She hit snooze and rolled over.

The alarm went off again. Rosie looked at the clock. 7:45. Snooze.

At 8:00, she got out of bed and pulled on a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. She brushed her hair in the mirror, applied some eyeliner, and went out to the kitchen.

Her flatmate Jane was already there, making pancakes. Somehow, even though Jane never had anywhere to be before eleven in the mornings, she was always up before Rosie. 

“Morning,” Rosie said as she walked in. She poured herself a bowl of cereal and sat down. 

“Morning, Rosie!” Jane said. “Pancakes?”

“I’m good, thanks,” Rosie said. “What’d you put in them today?”

“Marshmallows,” Jane said.

Rosie wrinkled her nose.

“Maybe Clee’ll want them,” she said. Cleis was their third flatmate, and she was always much more willing to eat strange food early in the morning.

“Hope so,” Jane said. “I made way too many for just myself, and I don’t think they’re going to keep.”

“Suppose you could always take them in for your students,” Rosie said. “Students’ll eat anything.”

“Excellent point,” Jane agreed. She was studying for her Ph.D. and taught a couple of introductory level university classes. It was true that her students would eat basically anything-- Rosie knew this because of the sheer volume of strange foods she had seen Jane bring to class and not bring home with her. Really, the students were doing her a service, because otherwise Jane would try and get her and Cleis to eat everything she made, and she somehow always made way too much.

Rosie finished her cereal. She still had some time before she had to leave, so she helped Jane pack her pancakes to take in to class. Cleis came in just as they were finishing up; as predicted, she plucked one directly out of the container and ate it with her fingers. She  _ was _ a student, after all, so maybe that explained it.

She packed herself a regular old sandwich and walked to the car shop where she worked. It was cloudy out-- she felt like she hadn’t seen the sun in ages, but maybe that was just what Sheffield was like. She had come from London a few months ago, and she hadn’t quite gotten into the rhythms yet. 

Her friend Ryan greeted her at the shop with, “Found another video of a cat playing sports.”

“Oh, which sport?” Rosie asked.

“Rugby,” Ryan said. 

“Oh, that’s brilliant,” Rosie said. Ryan was actually one of her only friends at the shop-- some of the guys hadn’t gotten past the idea of a woman being a mechanic, even though Rosie was more skilled than any of them, but Ryan could always be counted on to stand up for her if she needed. And, more importantly, he could also always be counted on to provide her with a cat video.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful-- Rosie fixed engines and changed oil like always, and then she walked home, like always. Jane wasn’t home yet, but Cleis was, and her friend Yaz was over. They had some sort of arrangement whereby Cleis was helping Yaz learn ancient Greek, and they were sitting at the kitchen table, chairs pulled close together, eating out of Styrofoam containers. Rosie said a quick hello and headed to the kitchen. 

Jane got home as Rosie joined Yaz and Cleis at the table with her food. She took one look at Rosie’s pasta, proclaimed it boring, and went on to make something involving anchovies, dried cherries, cornflakes, and salami. Rosie was almost done with her own dinner by the time Jane sat down, but she stuck around long enough to peer into Jane’s bowl and say, “I don’t know how you can eat that.”

“Years of practice,” Jane said. 

Rosie shrugged and went to sit on the sofa with her laptop. After a while, Jane joined her with a mountain of papers and at least three books, sprawling all over the remaining half of the sofa. Rosie scooted over to make room, propping her laptop up on her knees. This was a bit of a routine for the two of them-- Cleis, who had a ridiculously healthy sleep schedule, usually went to bed as soon after sunset as possible, which meant that Rosie’s only hope for company on weeknights rested in the hands of Jane, who fortunately came through in the form of apparently never sleeping. In fact, when Rosie went to bed, Jane was still scrawling on pieces of paper, hair all over her face, her tongue out, entirely focused on the task before her.

“‘Night, Jane,” Rosie said as she got up to leave.

Jane didn’t answer. Rosie smiled as she walked out, casting one look back at Jane’s total concentration.

She dreamed that night. She had been having strange, fanciful dreams for a few months, where she was traveling through time and space with men who were the same man, living in a strange box of a spaceship that was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside, and, in some of them, living a strange domestic life with one of the men in which he got older and she didn’t.

But tonight was different. The dream was different.

Jane was there.

Rosie was running, and then there was a hand in hers, and then there was Jane, tears in her eyes, and then-- there was a shock to her chest, and two hearts (two hearts?) beating, and then… 

And then Jane kissed her.

Rosie woke up minutes before her alarm went off with warmth still on her lips. 

She tried to put the dream out of her mind, but somehow, she couldn’t. She kept thinking about the look in the dream Jane’s eyes, and the way Jane’s hand had felt on her cheek.

And the emotions that had flooded her dream self. The relief, the familiarity, the-- was that  _ love _ ?

And that was the main thing on Rosie’s mind as she went into the kitchen. Fortunately, Jane wasn’t there-- only Cleis, who was at the table with a plate of eggs.

“Good morning,” she said to Rosie.

“‘Morning,” Rosie replied, only half-there. She was vaguely aware of Cleis’s eyes on her as she poured a bowl of cereal and sat down, but most of her mind was dedicated to trying to suppress her dream self’s feelings before Jane came in. 

She was halfway through her cereal when Cleis asked, “What’s wrong?”

Rosie jumped.

“What?”

“You’re distracted,” Cleis said.

“Oh, just-- I’ve been having weird dreams again.” She had told Cleis about her dreams a while back, after Cleis had mentioned using dreams in her poetry.

“What kind?” Cleis asked. “Is the Doctor back?”

“Sort of,” she said, glancing around the room. She leaned closer to Cleis and lowered her voice. “Jane was in this one.”

“Weird,” Cleis said.

Rosie lowered her voice even further. 

“She  _ kissed _ me,” she said. “Cleis, I’m  _ straight _ .”

“You’re what?” Cleis asked.

“I’m straight,” Rosie said. “You know, I’m into men.”

“Oh,” Cleis said. “You know, you don’t have to  _ only _ be into men.”

“Maybe not,” Rosie said, “but I am.”

Cleis raised her eyebrows.

“I  _ am _ , I’m telling you!” Rosie said. 

“Except that you blushed when I asked what was wrong,” Cleis said. 

“I did not!” Rosie exclaimed.

Just then, Jane walked in, wearing plaid pajama pants and a vividly purple sweatshirt.

“‘Morning,” she said. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Rosie said, glaring at Cleis.

“Oh, sure,” Cleis said. “Nothing at all.”

Jane gave them both a look.

“I know nothing when I see it,” she said. “No need to let me in on whatever it is, of course. Privacy and all that.”

“What’re you making for breakfast today?” Rosie asked, having been consumed with a desperate need to change the subject. “Anything with candy?”

“No, I’m taking a break from candy,” Jane said. “Figured today I’d go savory. Anchovy omelette, anyone?”

Of course, that wasn’t the end of that. By the time Rosie got to work, texts had apparently flown, because Ryan (who knew Yaz from primary school and was somehow still friends with her) greeted Rose with, “Yaz said you had  _ dreams _ about Jane.”

“Is this all we’re going to talk about today?” Rosie asked, pulling her hair back. “Come on, Ryan. We’ve got cars to fix.”

“I want to talk about your crush,” Ryan said.

“Can’t talk about it if I don’t have it,” Rosie countered. “Besides. I’m straight.”

“Straight girls don’t dream about kissing their roommates,” Ryan said.

“Sure they do,” Rosie said. “I can’t control what I dream.”

Ryan looked skeptical. 

“It’s all subconscious,” he said.

“My subconscious needs to quiet down, then,” Rosie said. “All my dreams are about time travel.”

“Weird,” Ryan said. “Are you in love with that too?”

Rosie slapped his shoulder. 

“Even if my dream  _ did _ mean I liked Jane,” she said, “I’m definitely not in  _ love _ with her.”

Ryan wiggled his eyebrows. Rosie rolled her eyes.

“I’ve got better things to do,” she said. “Did you forget we come here to work?”

“Just for a moment,” Ryan said with a smile.

That evening, things seemed a little stilted. Rosie was almost entirely sure that Cleis had said something to Jane-- she didn’t think she was entirely responsible for the dynamics at play. For one thing, Jane seemed subdued, which was saying a lot; Jane was almost never subdued. For another, Cleis seemed uncharacteristically nervous. And no one was talking to each other, really; everyone was completely in their own heads.

From the sofa, Rosie surreptitiously texted Cleis, who was at the kitchen table:

 

_ Rosie: did you tell jane? _

_ cleis: What? _

_ Rosie: about my dream _

_ cleis: No! _

_ Rosie: she’s acting weird _

_ cleis: I don’t know why. _

_ Rosie: who else knows??? ryan knew so yaz must know _

_ cleis: Yaz knows. Ryan knows. Neither of them told Jane. _

_ Rosie: are you sure? _

_ cleis: You can ask them if you want. _

_ Rosie: yeah i guess i will _

_ Rosie: can you ask yaz for me? i don’t have her number _

_ cleis: Of course. _

 

And then she texted Ryan:

 

_ ros(i)e t: hey you didn’t tell jane about my dream by any chance _

_ ryan sinclair: no i would never i promise _

_ ros(i)e t: you sure? _

_ ryan sinclair: 100% _

_ ros(i)e t: yaz didn’t either? _

_ ryan sinclair: she said she was only talking to me about it _

_ ryan sinclair: she wanted me to ‘help you realize your lesbian tendencies’ _

_ ryan sinclair: her words not mine _

_ ros(i)e t: i’ll ignore that _

_ ros(i)e t: but thanks _

_ ryan sinclair: why are you asking? _

_ ros(i)e t: she’s acting all weird and i don’t know why. made me nervous _

_ ryan sinclair: oh weird _

 

And then Cleis texted her back:

 

_ cleis: Yaz didn’t tell anyone but Ryan. _

_ Rosie: yeah, ryan said the same _

_ Rosie: wonder what’s up _

 

And she went back to trying to solve the crossword in the back of one of her trash magazines, her mind only half there.

The dreams came back that night in a montage-- she was standing on a beach, her hair blowing in the wind, and then she was blasting herself into other dimensions, watching the stars fade, and then she was running at a man she didn’t know but knew she loved, and then he was changing and didn’t change, and then she was on the beach with him again… and then he was dying and she was alone and she saw flashes of different parts of time and space and then she stepped into another universe and saw-- Jane, again, or rather felt Jane’s hand in hers as she ran. All of this came in a flood, mellowing out into a slow dance, something Rosie had never done, with Jane in her arms and a smile on her face.

She woke up with an impression of Jane’s yellow hair and bright smile and a general sense of contentment. Unfortunately, the contentment turned to confusion as the details of her real life came back to her. She was Rosie Taylor, human, born in 1994 in London, had never left the UK, only even in Sheffield because she had made a few bad decisions and was trying to make the best of them. Which involved getting her NVQ and living with some people she’d met in an online ad.  _ Not _ traveling through all of time and space with her alien friend who had three different faces. And  _ definitely _ not falling in love with her eccentric flatmate. Who was a woman, no less.

Wait. Falling in  _ love _ ?

Rosie had entertained the notion of a crush. Not altogether seriously, but she had thought about it. But she hadn’t thought of it in such serious terms.  _ Love _ . What a big word.

To be applied to a  _ woman _ !

But in her dreams, she had fallen in love with a man, and then she had fallen in love with the same man, now a woman. Maybe this was her subconscious’s way of telling her that gender didn’t matter.

Either way, it was too early to be trying to think through all this. Rosie sat up and stretched. It was Saturday-- no need to get dressed, so she padded out to the kitchen, still in the oversized T shirt she wore to bed. Cleis was there doing a sudoku puzzle, but Jane wasn’t, which was strange; Jane barely slept and was usually up much before Rosie. 

“Morning,” Rosie said, shuffling to make coffee. “Jane’s not up?”

“I haven’t seen her,” Cleis said. “How’d you sleep?”

“Well enough,” Rosie said, focusing on the coffee pot and  _ not _ the double entendre.

“Have any  _ dreams _ ?” Cleis asked, a teasing note in her voice.

“Don’t see how it’s your business what I dream about,” Rosie said, leaning against the counter.

“Just curious,” Cleis said. Rosie wasn’t looking, but she could hear Cleis’s grin. 

“I don’t see why we have to dissect my love life,” she said. “How about you and Yaz? You two seem pretty close.”

“We started dating last week,” Cleis said, marking an answer on her puzzle. 

“ _ Last week? _ ” Rosie hissed. “You didn’t tell us?”

“We wanted to see how long it would take you to notice,” Cleis said with a sparkle in her eyes. “Don’t tell Jane. I bet Yaz it’d take her a month, and I need my ten quid.”

“And you pry into  _ my  _ love life!” Rosie exclaimed. “Won’t even tell us about yours.” She paused, filling a mug with coffee. “There goes my gossip fodder, I suppose. Can’t make fun of you for a crush you’ve already figured out.”

“Which is why you clearly need to figure out yours,” Cleis replied. 

Rose sighed and sat down at the table.

“I suppose there’s no harm in talking about it,” she said. “Cleis, how did you know you were into women?”

To her surprise, Cleis laughed. She stared.

“Sorry,” Cleis said. “I can’t even explain properly. But my mum’s a lesbian. It was never much of a question for me, growing up around her friends.”

Suddenly, Rosie realized she had no idea what Cleis’s background was. She knew a bit about Jane’s, about as much as could be expected for a flatmate, but Cleis never talked about her past.

“Yeah?” she said, treading carefully. “Where was that?”

“A long way away,” Cleis said. “You wouldn’t know it.”

“Try me,” Rosie said.

But Cleis hesitated, and Rosie backtracked.

“Sorry,” she said. “You don’t have to.”

“It’s okay,” Cleis said, but she didn’t volunteer any more information, and Rosie was left to puzzle. 

“Maybe I do have a crush on Jane,” she finally said. She laughed, mostly to hide her nerves. “Anyway, it’s not like I’ll ever do anything about it. Can’t make things awkward with my flatmate.”

“Your choice,” Cleis said. “But I don’t think she’d mind.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rosie asked.

“Just think maybe you should give it a shot,” Cleis said.

Rose kept needling, but Cleis would say no more. Finally, it was almost noon, and Rosie said, “She should be up by now.”

“She should,” Cleis agreed, brow furrowed. She put down her pencil. “Should we knock on her door?”

“I don’t want to intrude,” Rosie said. 

“She might be sick,” Cleis said. “And if she is, we should help her.”

“Suppose so,” Rosie said. She stood up, and Cleis followed. Together they took the few steps into the hallway and knocked on Jane’s door. 

There was no response.

Rose knocked again.

No response.

She put her hand on the doorknob and glanced at Cleis, who gave her a nod. She cracked the door open and peeked inside.

She saw rumpled sheets and a pile of quilt, books strewn across the bed. She did not see Jane.

“She’s not here,” she said to Cleis.

Cleis pushed past her to get a look.

“Oh, no,” she said. “I’ll text Yaz.”

“Why’re you texting Yaz?” Rosie asked. “Jane’s missing!” Her voice went up into a register she associated with panic, and in that moment it hit her just how much she cared about her flatmate. She thought about the look in Jane’s eyes when she was cooking, the way she concentrated when she was writing papers, the way she grinned at Rosie whenever Rosie said anything particularly interesting. She thought about what it might be like if Jane was off dead in a ditch somewhere and Rosie never saw her again. 

“She’s got police training,” Cleis said, but Rosie could hear a controlled fear in her voice. “She’ll know what to do.”

“Where would she have gone?” Rosie asked. “You didn’t hear her this morning, did you?”

“I heard her  _ snoring _ ,” Cleis said. “Through the door when I got up.”

“So we know she was here when you got up,” Rosie said, “and we know she’s not here now.”

“Yaz and Ryan are going to be here soon,” Cleis said. “And Ryan’s grandad. Have you met Ryan’s grandad?”

“What’s Ryan’s grandad got to do with this?” Rosie asked. “Jane is  _ missing _ !” 

“He’s good at stuff like this,” Cleis said.

“You’re hiding something,” Rosie said. “Jane is missing, and you’re hiding something, and-- and-- and I’m going to go look for her myself!”

Cleis tried to protest, but Rosie was already in her room, looking for an appropriate outfit. She settled on jeans and a black T shirt, in case this involved any sort of subterfuge. She tied her hair back into a low ponytail and looked around for anything else to take. Her eyes fell on her old pocketwatch, and she snatched it up, not quite knowing why. 

As Rosie entered the hallway, Cleis moved to block her.

“I can’t let you do this,” she said.

“Too bad,” Rosie said, trying to duck around her.

“You’re going to go out there with  _ no _ idea what’s wrong and find Jane?” Cleis asked. 

“Well, I’m not waiting around until  _ Ryan’s grandad  _ gets here,” Rosie said. “Let me through.”

Cleis didn’t budge. Rosie glanced around. No weapons, not that she would know how to use them. But--

She darted back into her room and flung the door shut. She ran to the window and pushed it open. She looked down. They were on the second floor, but just below was an awning for the store beneath them. She slung one leg over the windowsill, then the other, and dropped herself onto the awning. Gymnastics as a kid had come in handy for something, then. She managed to slide to the edge of the awning, and then, to the confusion of passersby, she dropped to the ground. She stuck her landing and immediately started walking, trying to think where Jane could have gone.

The university. If anyone wanted to kidnap Jane, they would have come from the university. That was where she spent most of her time. Rosie started walking. 

She made it to the bus stop before it happened. She was walking, her feet connecting with the pavement, and then suddenly… she wasn’t, and they weren’t. The pavement felt like it was disappearing, and when she looked down, she saw that her  _ feet _ had disappeared, having sunk into the pavement, which as far as appearances went was absolutely fine. As she watched, her calves were swallowed up, and then her thighs, and before she knew it, gravity caught her and she fell into a puddle of water. When she looked up, she realized she was underground, in some sort of sewer tunnel.

It took her a moment to process this. She hadn’t felt anything as she had been sinking, but now the air seemed still and cold, and something was dripping on her shoulder. It didn’t smell all that bad, thank goodness, but-- she had been aboveground, and then she had been underground, with very little transition in between. 

It felt a little like something that would happen in a dream.

She looked up. There was a line of single lightbulbs above her, one every few feet, but other than that, the light was dim. The ceiling looked as solid as anything. Not at all like something a full-grown woman could have just fallen through. 

Rosie took a step and realized that her feet were still submerged in water. Grimacing, she splashed her way to the side of the tunnel, but it was too late: her shoes had gotten wet, and now she made a squishing sound when she walked. 

She made a mental list of things she knew. First of all, Jane had gone missing under mysterious circumstances. Second of all, she had just experienced some  _ very  _ mysterious circumstances. Therefore, it followed that she had half a chance of finding Jane if she poked around a bit.

She started walking, more determined than ever before, and not at all bothered by the fact that she had no way out of the sewer. That would come in time; for now she had to find Jane.

If she was being honest, she knew she was being irrational. She knew this was a bad decision, a dangerous, rash decision, and she should have waited for Yaz, who had actual police training, and Ryan, who she trusted, and even Ryan’s grandad, whatever his role in a search party might be. 

But she wasn’t in the mood for honesty-- Jane was gone, and Rosie was worried. Part of her was remembering Jamie leaving her all alone in Sheffield, running off one day with a girl he worked with. Rosie knew Jane hadn’t left her on purpose, knew Jane didn’t even have reason to believe Rosie cared about her as more than a friend, but part of her remembered that rejection, how much it had stung, and needed to know that Jane hadn’t done that. 

And then another part of her was thinking about her parents, who she had never known, and how they had died in a car crash, and Rosie hadn’t gotten to meet them. She had spent her childhood wishing she could have done something to help. Wondering what would have happened if she could have-- she didn’t know what. 

She didn’t know what now, either, but she was absolutely sure Jane was nearby, and she wasn’t going to lose her.

She kept walking, a drive in her step, taking turns at random through the sewers. Her mind was racing, around and around in circles, and it took her a while to realize that her feet had been following, and she was practically right where she had begun.

“Damn it,” she muttered. She called out. “Jane!” 

There was no answer. Rosie leaned against the wall in defeat, closing her eyes. She wanted to cry. Jane was gone, she was in a sewer, she didn’t know how she’d gotten there, and nothing made sense.

She was just about to really start bawling when she heard the telltale splashing of footsteps. She looked up, wiping her eyes, and no sooner did she see the fidgeting figure in front of her than she launched herself up and into its arms. She  _ was _ crying now, happy tears and scared tears and a few sad tears to boot. 

Jane’s arms tightened around her, and Rosie thought for a moment she’d never let go, she’d just stand here in this hug forever, until all her tears ran dry.

But then she did let go, and she tried her best to dry her tears herself, while Jane looked at her with something Rosie had never seen before in her eyes.

“You look like you do in my dreams,” Jane said.

That surprised Rosie so much that she really did stop crying.

“Your dreams?” she asked.

“Sorry,” Jane said. “Didn’t mean to say that out loud. It’s just-- sometimes I have dreams that you’re in, and in the ones where I’m me you put your hair back like that.”

Rosie reached up and touched her ponytail. 

“I forgot,” she said. “It was an instinct.”

“Looks good,” Jane said. 

“Sure that’s what you want to focus on?” Rosie asked. She paused. “And-- can you tell me more about your dreams?”

“I don’t know,” Jane said. “They’re strange. I have this ship, and I go all over the place. I’ve saved the world millions of times, in my dreams.”

“You’ve in my dreams, too,” Rosie said. “Where I’m traveling with you. You’re called the Doctor, and I’m just called Rose, and--” She paused. “We’ve danced together, in my dreams.”

“Did a lot more than dance,” Jane said with a laugh. 

Rosie smiled. 

“Suppose so,” she said. “But-- if we’re having the same dreams-- what does that mean about us?”

“Not sure,” Jane said. “Think it’s got something to do with why we’re in this sewer?”

“It must,” Rosie said. “What do you think?”

“I’m not sure,” Jane said. “Our subconscious is clearly trying to tell us something.”

Suddenly, Rosie remembered the pocketwatch, the one she had grabbed on impulse as she left. She slipped her hand into the pocket of her jeans and felt the cold metal against her palm. She drew it out.

“Do you think this has something to do with it?” she asked.

“You’ve got one too?” Jane asked, pulling a matching watch out of her jacket pocket. She held it out next to Rosie’s. They were nearly identical-- golden, with a fine chain. 

“Have you ever opened it?” Rosie asked.

Jane shook her head.

“So something’s happening,” Rosie said. “We’re having dreams where we’re other people. And now it’s like-- it’s like we’re in the dreams.” She took a deep breath. “Jane-- do you think we’re not who we think we are?”

Jane was staring at the watch.

“It’s talking to me,” she said. “Can you hear it?”

Rosie held her watch up to her ear. Now Jane mentioned it, there were whispers… they felt tangled, somehow. If she just opened the watch, maybe she could untangle them… 

“I think it wants me to open it,” she said. 

“Should we?” Jane asked. “We don’t know what will happen.”

“I think,” Rosie said, “I think we might turn into-- who we are in our dreams.”

“I like being me,” Jane said. 

“Me, too,” Rosie said. “But this might be bigger than that. If you-- if the Doctor-- if we have a habit of saving the world, and the world might need saving--”

“It’s our responsibility to bring them back,” Jane said. “Even if it means we die.”

Rosie nodded. Suddenly, she felt very small. Just a regular human, living in Sheffield, when she was beginning to get hints of some great cosmic conflict. 

“But we’ll still remember us, right?” she asked. “We’ll-- be part of ourselves.”

“‘Course,” Jane said. “And-- I think I want the Doctor around in this kind of crisis.”

Rosie nodded.

“On three, then?” Jane asked, holding up her watch.

“Hold on,” Rosie said. “There’s one last thing I want to do.” 

And before Jane could say anything, she stepped forward and put a hand on Jane’s waist. If Jane had pulled away, she would have stopped, but Jane leaned closer, and so Rosie let her eyes slide close as she pressed her lips to Jane’s in a kiss. Despite everything, this was exactly like it was in her dream-- familiar, electric, like coming home. Jane’s hand tangled in her hair, pulling out her ponytail, and Rosie didn’t argue-- she was about to change, and for now she wanted to be Rosie, just Rosie, who wasn’t straight after all and went to work every day and hadn’t been any further away than London. 

And then she pulled back, and she held up her watch, and her thumb found the latch. 

“On three,” she said, still in a bit of a haze, and Jane, still looking a little dreamy, nodded.

And then they counted to three.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sa;jlkfda;slkjdf so yeah i definitely included cleis in part as a scheme to give yaz a girlfriend. i wish this fic included more of yaz's perspective so i could write more about how they became close and i might still write some of that! but it involves yaz teaching cleis english and also like. basic modern culture. and cleis teaching yaz ancient greek. and probably both of them going on some like. minor adventures. but cleis, yaz, ryan, and graham definitely had a giant conspiracy behind the scenes of this like "how do we not let rose and the doctor find out but still get their human selves together" 
> 
> if you've stuck with me through these 400 twists and turns... thank you... i love you with my whole heart and soul...


	10. Chapter 10

Rosie was dying.

She had flicked open the watch, and right away a soft orange glow had filtered out, and then suddenly it had  _ consumed _ her, pouring information into her head faster than she could process it, and now every cell in her body hurt, her eyes were screwed shut against a blinding light, and this had to be what death felt like. Memories were their way through the pain-- all the things Rosie had dreamed-- standing on a beach while a figure faded away-- racing down a brightly-lit hallway-- and then the names of things, Daleks, Slitheen, and-- and the Doctor. A huge emotional weight hit her all at once, and for a moment she was impossibly happy, sad, angry, afraid, in love, everything she had ever felt, all of this all at once.

Finally, the pain faded. The memories settled in. 

And Rose Tyler opened her eyes.

She was still in a sewer. Jane Smith-- no, the Doctor, now-- was still in front of her, fairly close, in fact, hands on her knees, breathing heavily. She could feel her extra heart beating away in her chest, she could feel the Earth spinning beneath her feet. The familiarity of being back in her own mind, with her own memories.

Just when she was almost done adjusting to all this, the Doctor straightened up and grinned. 

“Brilliant,” she said. “Nice to see you again, Rose Tyler.”

“You too, Doctor.” 

Rose held out a hand, palm-up, and the Doctor took it. 

“Ready to save the world?” she asked.

“I’d settle for escaping this sewer,” the Doctor said. 

“Baby steps,” Rose said. She glanced around, and her hair immediately fell in her face. “Did you do something with my hair tie?”

The Doctor blinked at her. “With what?”

“Sorry,” Rose said. “It’s not important. Used to get by with loose hair all the time, yeah?”

“That’s good,” the Doctor said, “because everything’s a bit muddled up in my head right about now.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling,” Rose replied with a laugh. “So. Out of the sewer?” 

They started walking fairly aimlessly, splashing in the water. 

“So I’d guess our four-dimensional creature found us,” Rose said.

“Looks like it,” the Doctor said. “Can’t figure out what it’s up to.”

“If it’s four-dimensional,” Rose said, thinking about all the research she’d done to make her dimension cannon, “couldn’t it sort of-- mess with us? Like how we can write on two-dimensional surfaces.”

The Doctor stopped in her tracks.

“Of course,” she said. “That’s what it’s doing.” She paused. “Doesn’t tell us how to stop it.”

“Suppose that’s another question,” Rose said. “But walking around’s probably not doing us much good.”

“True enough,” the Doctor said. 

“But,” Rose added, “if it can mess with our surroundings, why can’t it just mess with  _ us _ ? Just erase us from existence?”

“I suppose it can’t,” the Doctor said. “Must be why it sees us as a threat.”

“Or maybe it doesn’t want to,” Rose said. “Might just want to trap us. Study us.”

“Don’t fancy that,” the Doctor said.

“No,” Rose said. “Me either.”

“Which begs the question,” the Doctor said, fire in her eyes. “What can we do in three dimensions that a four-dimensional creature can’t handle?”

Rose took a step towards the wall of the sewer. She looked up and down, and then she reached out a hand and tapped the wall. It was regular concrete, a little slimy, but otherwise uninteresting. She stepped back.

“Concrete walls,” she said, turning back to the Doctor. “Not much we can do there.” She paused. “Do you think they can hear us? If they’re in another dimension?”

“Good question,” the Doctor said. “I’m thinking about what you said earlier, about how it’s like if we were drawing on a two-dimensional surface. I’ve dealt with two-dimensional creatures, actually. Weird experience. But right now I’m imagining what we can perceive of those creatures.”

“Just what we can see, right?” Rose asked.

“Exactly,” the Doctor said. “But I’m wondering-- what if these creatures can perceive more than just our bodies? They can clearly rewrite our space. What if they can see vibrations?”

“You mean like noise,” Rose said.

“Exactly,” the Doctor said. 

“So you think if we just make a lot of noise, it’ll do something?” Rose asked.

“There’s a chance,” the Doctor said. “It might distract them. Everything here  _ wants _ to be in its regular place; they’re probably using some force to rearrange it. So if we can really bamboozle them, these sewers might turn back to real sewers, which’ll let us escape and buy us time until we can get back to the TARDIS.”

“Suppose there’s no risk,” Rose said. “We could use our--” And then she realized something, and she slapped her forehead. “Oh! We’re both so stupid!”

The Doctor tilted her head, forehead crinkled. “

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve got mobiles,” Rose said. “I was about to suggest we get music up on our phones and blast it as loud as we could, and I suppose we should do that too, but, Doctor, we could literally just  _ phone the others _ .”

“And tell them what?”

“I don’t know,” Rose said, her phone already halfway out of her pocket. “Find your sonic, maybe. Do something to the TARDIS. Tell them we’ve turned back, at least. If we do the noise thing, they could meet us here, bring speakers. They’re probably mad with worry, anyway.”

“Oh, my sonic,” the Doctor said, breezing past everything else Rose had mentioned. “I miss my sonic. I don’t even know what I did with my sonic.” 

“It’s probably in the pocket of your jacket,” Rose said, flipping her phone on. “Someone’ll have it.” The screen lit up with a barrage of notifications-- missed calls and texts from Ryan, Yaz, Graham, and Cleis, plus some cheesy game reminding her her lives had regenerated. Rose took a moment to laugh at the irony of that, and then she tried to remember the passcode to her phone. Fortunately, muscle memory came through where her memory (or Rosie’s memory) wouldn’t. Her thumb tapped out the code, and she called the first name on her “missed calls” list-- Ryan.

He picked up right away and didn’t even give her a moment to say hello.

“Rosie!” he said. “Where are you? We’re all worried.”

“Sorry,” Rose said. “Not much time for an update. We’re somewhere underneath the bus stop by my flat. Can you get here? Tell the others. And bring anything you can that makes noise.”

There was a moment in which Rose was sure Ryan was going to ask more questions, but he just said, “You got it, then,” and hung up.

“Ryan’s on his way,” Rose said to the Doctor, who was rocking back on her heels waiting for Rose. She flicked through her texts, but there was nothing of note-- everyone was worried, which was nice, but not necessarily the most helpful. 

“So, noise, then,” the Doctor said, getting out her phone. “Always wanted to get out of a situation by singing.”

Rose laughed. 

“I’ll bet you did,” she said. “Just waiting for Broadway to come find you.”

“Oi, I’ve been on Broadway!” the Doctor protested. “ _ Cats _ , mind, and only to step in for one of the real actors, but still Broadway. Had to fake an accent and everything.”

“You were in  _ Cats _ ?” Rose asked, giggling. But before the Doctor could answer, she made herself stop and shook her head. “Sorry, we’ve got bigger things to worry about. Don’t think you won’t be telling me all about it later, though.”

“Don’t think I’m going to go with  _ Cats _ right now, though,” the Doctor said. “I mean, if we’re going to be singing.”

“Well, bring out your best,” said Rose, who had just been planning on yelling. She thumbed through her phone until she landed on her favorite alarm tone. “Bit of an echo in these sewers, hopefully that’ll help. Got something on your phone?”

“Human me has horrible music taste,” the Doctor said, making a face. 

“Hopefully  _ loud _ music taste,” Rose said. “Ready?”

“This had better work,” the Doctor said.

“Ready?” Rose asked. She turned her phone volume up to full. She took a deep breath. 

And then there was complete chaos. Rose started yelling, her alarm tone blared, the Doctor was belting something vaguely familiar, some pop anthem was coming out of her phone, and all of this was echoing, bouncing off the concrete walls of the sewers. After half a minute or so, the thought rose amid the noise that she should have needed to breathe by now-- respiratory bypass, she remembered. Time Lords could hold their breath longer than humans. 

She was just getting to her limit when she noticed something out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head and saw, barely visible in the dim light, a ladder, reaching down from the top of the sewer. She glanced back at the Doctor, who had clearly seen it too, and they both started running, still singing and screaming at the tops of their lungs. 

Rose climbed up first, lifting the manhole cover on her shoulders and pushing it out of the way as she clambered onto the street, squinting in the sun. She was still yelling, her phone still blaring, and she saw passersby stare and jump back at all the commotion. She didn’t blame them, considering.

She glanced around, looking for the bus stop. It was a little to the left, filled with staring pedestrians-- but as the Doctor climbed out of the manhole, Rose saw Ryan, Yaz, Graham, and Cleis running towards them, carrying an assortment of things from metal pans to party noisemakers to a boombox to the lyre Cleis had somehow managed to track down. They were saying things, but Rose couldn’t make it out underneath her own noise.

“We have to get back to the TARDIS!” the Doctor yelled, interrupting her song mid-word. “We’re making noise so the creatures can’t detect us!” 

She continued her song right where she’d left off, and Yaz glanced between the Doctor and Rose and, absolutely screaming to be heard over them, said, “Doesn’t seem like yelling will make us less detectable!”

“Trust us!” Rose answered, not even taking a breath. “Let’s go! Be loud!”

Ryan turned on the boombox, Cleis started strumming the lyre, Graham banged his pans together, and Yaz blew her noisemakers, and they set off with their din and clatter at a brisk pace-- as fast as they could go without Cleis dropping her lyre or anyone running completely out of breath-- until they were standing in front of the TARDIS.

Rose had vague memories of seeing the TARDIS as Rosie, of thinking nothing of it. Then, the light had gone out of its windows, and it seemed dull and dead-- now, she thought it might be waking up. The light was still out, but Rose could feel the TARDIS’s usual hum in the back of her head.

Of course, the true test was whether it opened when the Doctor didn’t have a key on her. 

Rose watched, her thoughts almost blocked out by the complete cacaphony, as the Doctor approached the TARDIS with a desperation in her eyes that in no way matched the jaunty tune she was singing. She touched the door with a gentleness that Rose’s overwhelmed senses could barely process, and a moment later, the door cracked open, and they all piled in, still banging and singing and yelling.

And then the Doctor stopped singing, and everyone else followed suit.

“Should be safe,” the Doctor explained. “For now, at least. Not forever, but that’s just how it is, I suppose. I’ve got to rig something up with the TARDIS. I think I can make a sort of-- time arrow-- that’ll get these guys.”

“Time arrow?” Yaz asked.

“I’m not sure how it’s going to work,” the Doctor said. “I couldn’t get it to happen before. And it’s going to take a great deal of energy, we’ll have to stop off in Cardiff after. But I’m sure the TARDIS can work it out. Hopefully. Well, it’s our best hope, at any rate.” Her concentration gave way to a smile, and she did a little wave. “Anyway. Hello, everybody!”

“So, you guys are, like, back?” Ryan asked.

“Seems like it,” Rose said. 

“That’s so weird,” Ryan said. “It’s been months.”

“What happened to Jane and Rosie, then?” Yaz asked.

“They’re part of us,” the Doctor said. “Always will be part of us. Just a much, much smaller part of us. We can talk about it later, no time now.” She launched herself towards the console, looking a little bereft without her usual flapping coat. But as she started flipping switches and throwing levers, she had her usual frenetic energy-- an energy that had been muted in her human self, Rose thought. Suppressed by the uncertainty that came with being human, maybe.

“Do you have any idea what she’s doing?” Graham asked. 

Rose shook her head.

“Haven’t been Time Lord that long,” she said. 

“What about the noise?” Cleis asked. “What was that for?”

“To sort of block us out,” Rose said. “So that we could escape and get to the TARDIS.” She explained what she and the Doctor had figured out earlier about the creatures they were escaping. The others seemed to understand, or, at least, they pretended to. 

“But when did you turn back into yourselves?” Yaz asked. 

“We both sort of fell into this sewer,” Rose said. “Through solid concrete. And we’d been having all these dreams about it, so-- Rosie and Jane thought it was time for the others to take over.”

“Did you at least kiss first?” Ryan asked, and Yaz elbowed him. He gave her a look, then looked back to Rose. “Well, did you?”

Rose blushed.

“Don’t see how it’s your business,” she said.

“Hey!” Ryan said. “I spent too long wingmanning for my efforts to go to waste. The two of you were being proper stupid.”

Rose rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, fine, just before we turned back,” she said. “And anyway, I’m not the only one with drama,  _ Yaz-and-Cleis _ !”

“Sorry, what?” Ryan asked.

Just then, the Doctor called from the console, “Might need some help, you lot!”

“We  _ are _ talking about this later,” Ryan said as everybody ran over to the Doctor. She started shouting instructions, and moments later everyone had a hand on a lever or a finger on a button or an eye on a monitor. The Doctor threw another switch, and everything flashed white. Rose screwed her eyes shut, feeling the smooth cold metal of the knobs she was holding in her hands, listening as the TARDIS screeched and groaned and then, finally, was silent.

Rose opened her eyes. 

The TARDIS was entirely dark. Nearly every light had gone out; she could see the others in a feeble glow from the central crystal. The Doctor was looking at the crystal like she was waiting for something with bated breath. Rose couldn’t tell what, but then she jumped back and yelled as a blinding pain ripped through her head, leaving her just a little dizzy.

“Are you all right?” Yaz asked at Rose’s side.

“Fine,” Rose said. “What was that?”

The Doctor was still standing at the TARDIS, looking just a little paler than before.

“Sorry,” she said. “Would’ve warned you, only I didn’t know it’d do that.”

“What did you do?” Rose asked.

“Time arrow,” the Doctor said. “You and I could feel it because of our time senses-- it’s ripping through the fabric of time to get to those creatures. We’re going to have to come back and play clean-up later, but it’s going to take more from the TARDIS.”

“Do we have enough to get to Cardiff?” Rose asked.

“Should be all right,” the Doctor said. “It’s only a hop.”

“What’s in Cardiff?” Yaz asked. 

“What  _ is _ Cardiff?” Cleis asked.

“City in Wales,” the Doctor said. “It’s got a great big time rift right through it. All this energy for the TARDIS to feed on. And we’ve got just enough to get there, as long as we’re really gentle about it. Rose, fancy helping?”

“‘Course,” Rose said. “Tell me what you need.”

“Just get the stabilizers?” the Doctor said.

With a jolt, Rose realized she actually knew what the Doctor meant by that. She moved around Yaz and took hold of a lever, easing it into place as the TARDIS began a weak imitation of its usual noise. Rose almost wanted to cry, hearing it, feeling the TARDIS’s Herculean effort in the back of her mind.

She had forgotten about her time senses in the moments after becoming Time Lord again, but now she could feel the time vortex around them, the subtle shift of Sheffield, then Cardiff, seconds later. The TARDIS’s groan faded, and the group piled out onto the streets.

“Should be fine, then,” the Doctor said. “Takes 72 hours to recharge, then we’ll go back to Sheffield, see if our arrow worked.”

“How are we going to know?” Graham asked.

“I’ll be able to sense it,” the Doctor said. 

“And if we make it here for 72 hours,” Rose added, “I’d guess it probably worked, wouldn’t you, Doctor?”

“Also that,” the Doctor said. “But now we’ve got time to kill. Who wants chips?”

And she slipped her hand into Rose’s, and together they started walking, feeling just a little lighter for the relief of this whole ordeal being over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter's going to be almost entirely like... fluff/team tardis having a good time/unpacking the whole turning-into-humans thing (and also the yaz/cleis thing which i have NOT backed up by the text i know that) so get ready for that. 
> 
> also i made up a LOT of bs space science for this chapter but i will defend it by saying that literally all of doctor who is bs space science and i absolutely love making up more of it. i have not taken a science class since high school and i dropped out of physics but i sure do read a lot of sci-fi so i'm counting myself qualified. and also??? it's fiction! i made up weird fake creatures and then i made up the concept of a "time arrow" to deal with those weird fake creatures! don't let it distract from what we're really here for, which is, of course, wlw energies


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as usual, i am posting at 1:30 am with barely an editing eye. have fun

They wound up all sitting in a little restaurant just by where the TARDIS had materialized.

“Wonder if being on a rift in time gets this place better business,” Rose said. She was crammed into the corner of a booth with the others, the Doctor’s arm around her shoulders as they looked over menus. 

“More interesting business, maybe,” Ryan said. 

“Just more of  _ my _ business, presumably,” the Doctor said. “There aren’t exactly that many active TARDIS-users. And I haven’t really been here before, either. But we’re good business, don’t you think?”

“I’ll take it,” Graham said.

“Anyway,” Rose said, “I want to hear about what happened on your end while we were human.”

“Mostly a lot of texting about you two,” Ryan said. “Pretty boring, really.”

“Speak for yourself,” Cleis said. “I’ve learned languages that don’t even  _ exist _ in my time.”

“I figured out how to turn off her translator,” Yaz said, almost apologetic. “And on again, obviously. And learned some ancient Greek besides. What was it, Aeolic?”

“I think so,” Cleis said. “I mean, I just call it regular. And your machine is translating for me now anyway.”

“And what happened between you two?” Rose asked, nodding across the booth at Yaz and Cleis. 

“Nothing you didn’t see, really,” Yaz said.

“I asked Yaz to teach me English,” Cleis explained. “And then I was showing her Greek. We saw all of Sheffield together. It was lovely. Although I really think you could use more ocean.”

“You can say that again,” Graham said. Cleis grinned at him.

“Plus,” Ryan added, “both of them were texting me about each other non-stop. Between the four of you I’ve been playing wingman like it’s a full-time job.”

“We appreciate your efforts,” Yaz assured him. 

“Everyone’s been very nice,” Cleis added. She had the same wide-eyed expression as Yaz, Rose decided-- a similar sort of wonder when approached with new things. She hadn’t noticed it so much when she’d been Rosie, when Yaz was just a near-neighbor who was learning Greek from her roommate, or even when they’d all been on Lesbos and Cleis was still at home, but now they were both out of their comfort zones again (even if it was just Cardiff), Rose could see that they were interacting with the unfamiliarity in the same way. It reminded Rose a little bit of how she’d felt way back at the beginning of it all, when every new planet had been a miracle.

“So what do we do now?” Yaz asked.

“Can’t let any grass grow under your feet, can you?” Graham asked. “We’re stuck here, yeah? For three days?”

“It’s a valid question,” the Doctor said. “Could go back to the TARDIS. But if we’re here we might as well have some fun.”

“We could always pretend to be proper tourists,” Ryan said. “Do a whole hotel-and-museum thing.”

“I’ve never been to Cardiff before,” Yaz chimed in. “ _ And _ it’s relaxed enough for the grandads among us.”

“Brilliant!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Love having a plan. Almost as much as I love not having a plan. Really, can go either way, on plans.”

“You just like adventures,” Rose said with a playful nudge.

“Absolutely correct,” the Doctor said. “A million points to Rose Tyler.”

“Oi, that puts Rose ahead of me now!” Yaz protested. “You can’t give out a million at once, it’s not fair.”

“Oh, yeah, because the points system is known for its fairness,” Graham said. 

“Fine,” the Doctor said. “A million points to all the rest of you, too.”

“And I’m removing myself from the competition anyway,” Rose added. “Don’t need points. I’m all secure in my worth and everything.”

“Oi, I’m secure!” Yaz said. “Just competitive.”

“There’s a points system?” Cleis asked. 

“Not really,” the Doctor said. “I just need something to say when I’m excited.”

“As if you’re ever at a loss for words,” Rose teased. 

“Fair enough,” the Doctor agreed around a mouthful of chips. She swallowed with a grin. “Anyway, brilliant! Vacation with the fam. Gang? Team? Did we decide on fam?”

“Think we did, yeah,” Graham said. 

“Brilliant,” the Doctor said again.

A few hours later, all six of them were checked into a Cardiff hotel, with a little help from the Doctor’s mysterious ability to get large amounts of cash out of ATM’s (which Rose pointed out might be a violation of their agreement to pretend to be “regular tourists,” at which point the Doctor said regular tourists would’ve brought  _ some _ spending money with them, and she wasn’t about to put that responsibility on the hapless humans she liked to bring on adventures). It wasn’t quite nighttime yet, but Graham said he was all right with a rest, and everyone else was either tired or incredibly susceptible to the power of suggestion, and so everyone retreated into their respective rooms.

Which left Rose in a hotel room with the Doctor, who seemed in danger of literally bouncing off the walls. One moment she was examining the television with her sonic screwdriver, the next she was jumping on the bed to see if it was soft enough, and still the next she was tinkering with the lamps. 

“Don’t break anything,” said Rose, who was leaning against the headboard, flipping through one of the what-to-do guides she’d grabbed from the front desk.

“I’m not going to break anything,” the Doctor said, a lampshade in one hand. “I know what I’m doing.”

“Sure you do,” Rose said.

“Anyway,” the Doctor added, “I’ve got all this weird energy after being Jane. She slept far more than I ever would.”

“Maybe we should go for a walk, then,” Rose said, eyeing the half-dissected lamp. “Find something else to dismantle, yeah?”

The Doctor slammed the lampshade back on the lamp, and Rose cringed, sure the lamp had somehow broken. The Doctor, unbothered, said, “Brilliant! Love a walk,” and immediately began running around the room, picking up her jacket, three pens, and a couple of screws that Rose was sure had come from the television. Rose slipped her shoes on and texted the others to let them know where she and the Doctor were going, and moments later, they were in the elevator to the hotel lobby, both grinning at the prospect of exploring even a relatively familiar city.

The Doctor took Rose’s hand as they left the hotel, emerging onto a somewhat busy street.

“Are you sure we should hold hands?” Rose asked. “I mean, is it safe?”

“What do you mean?” the Doctor asked.

“I mean we’re both women,” Rose said, “or we both look like women, anyway, and this century isn’t always kind to two women holding hands.”

“Anyone gives us trouble, I’ll fight ‘em off,” the Doctor said. Her grip on Rose’s hand only tightened. 

“I’d like to see that,” Rose said, smiling. “Pacifist Doctor, trying to fight off some bloke on the street.”

“Yeah, I suppose that’d violate some policies,” the Doctor said. “Still. Rules change all the time. First sign of trouble, I promise.”

Rose laughed, and they walked in silence for a block or two.

“It’s weird, being back in this body,” Rose said finally. “I forgot what being human was like.”

“Me too,” the Doctor said. “Not that I have quite the same relationship with it as you have.”

“I feel so old,” Rose said. “Compared to Rosie, I mean. She was all-- all nervous all the time. I forgot that part of being human.”

“Think that’s just being young,” the Doctor said. “Even I was young once.”

“What qualifies as young for you?” Rose asked, only half teasing. “Hundred years? Two hundred?”

“Pretty much,” the Doctor admitted. “Although, give it a few thousand more years and I’ll say this version of me was young. It’s all relative.”

“Fair enough,” Rose said. She thought about that for a minute, her hand swinging with the Doctor’s. She remembered meeting the Doctor for the first time, feeling like a complete failure until she got in the TARDIS and figured out what she was good for (running, it turned out, and talking to aliens, and solving puzzles lightyears away from home). She  _ had _ been young then, and her body hadn’t aged, but her mind had. Rosie had been somewhere in the middle-- she had inherited some of Rose’s self-assurance and self-knowledge, but she had still been uncertain of herself, constantly bored, afraid she was wasting her life. The near-immortality of a Time Lord still scared Rose, but she was a much better person than she would have been if she had stayed alone and human, plodding through life not knowing what it was she wanted but knowing her life was not enough.

“Penny for your thoughts?” the Doctor said, and Rose realized she would have just walked right into traffic if the Doctor hadn’t pulled her back.

“Sorry,” she said. “Just thinking about not being human anymore.”

“Good thinking?” the Doctor asked. “Or bad thinking?”

“Good, I think,” Rose said. “I told you years ago, didn’t I? I love this life.”

The Doctor squeezed her hand. The light in front of them turned green, and they started crossing the street.

“Where are we going?” Rose asked.

“No idea,” the Doctor said. “Sorry. Sort of thought if I was directionless enough you’d lead the way.”

“Doesn’t Jack live around here somewhere?” Rose asked. “We could visit him.”

“Somewhere around here, yeah,” the Doctor said. “He still won’t tell me exactly where. After years of prodding. Well, years for me. Not sure how long it’s been for him. Probably years.”

Rose laughed.

“I suppose if I were him I wouldn’t want my alien friend with a habit of unannounced visits to have my exact address,” she said.

“As if he’s never dropped in on me unannounced!” the Doctor exclaimed. “He rode on the outside of the TARDIS to the end of the  _ entire universe  _ one time. Least he can do is let me drop in when I’m in town and bored.”

Rose laughed.

“Do Time Lords have a concept of manners?” she asked.

“Everyone has a concept of manners,” the Doctor said. “Different manners, maybe. And I’m rubbish at all of them.”

“Should’ve known,” Rose said. “Suppose there’s not much use for real manners when you’re saving every planet you come across.”

“Precisely,” the Doctor said. “That’s my excuse, at any rate.”

Rose laughed. She couldn’t get the grin off her face, just walking down the street with the Doctor, making the same jokes they’d always made. Then again, she had never, even at the beginning, been able to suppress a smile with the Doctor around. 

A moment later, Rose felt the Doctor freeze next to her. She looked around for the source of concern and realized there was a beeping noise of some sort coming from the nearest alley, and a few of her time senses felt a bit off-- she didn’t even have to look at the Doctor to know that was where they were going next. Together, they sprinted for the alley, stopping short when they got to its mouth and saw an unfamiliar woman standing there, poking with frustration at what Rose thought might be a vortex manipulator.

She was about to say something to the woman, but a quick glance at the Doctor gave her pause-- the Doctor had dropped Rose’s hand and was staring at the woman like she’d seen a ghost, her eyes wide, her mouth open. Rose turned back to the woman, who was looking at them both with an open curiosity and just a little bit of surprise.

“What’s going on?” Rose asked. She tugged the Doctor’s arm. “Doctor? Do you know her?”

The Doctor didn’t respond. She just kept staring at the woman.

“River?” she exhaled, and suddenly understanding crashed onto Rose-- this was River, then. The Doctor’s wife. It had been one thing to accept the Doctor’s marriage when it was a hypothetical, something that had happened in the past and was no longer a concern, but it was another thing to look the woman in the eyes and know that she was at least as important to the Doctor as Rose was.

“Oh, don’t tell me you never thought you’d see me again,” the woman-- River-- said, effortlessly shaking off her surprise and replacing it with seduction. “Who’s your friend? Or, no, don’t tell me, I’m sure I can guess.” She looked Rose up and down with raised eyebrows. “Rose, is it?”

Rose glanced back at the Doctor, who seemed to slowly be regaining her mind. 

“That’s me,” she said to River.

“Weren’t you stuck in a parallel universe?” River asked, curiosity back on her face.

“For a bit, yeah,” Rose said. “Got pretty good at dimensional physics, came back here. But-- you’re the Doctor’s wife, yeah?”

“That’s one of my many titles,” River said. She looked back at the Doctor. “This one’s grown no less awkward, then?”

“This one might be more awkward than the ones I traveled with,” Rose said.

“I didn’t know the Doctor back then,” River said. “After all, I like older men.”

The Doctor seemed to have regained her composure. At least, she was together enough to say, “Oi, I’m a woman now!”

“So I noticed,” River said. “How delicious.”

Rose stifled a laugh. 

“Oh, no, you can laugh if you want,” River told her. “I take no offense. You’re handling this quite well, by the way, for someone who’s just met the wife of someone I can only assume is very dear to you.”

Rose opened and closed her mouth a few times, trying to figure out how to answer that. The accurate answer, of course, would be that she knew the Doctor had a lot of love to give, or perhaps that she’d thought River was dead, but the former felt too personal and the latter could have caused some sort of paradox.

“Oh, I know,” River said. “This is the oldest I’ve seen you, Doctor. How long has it been?”

“Few years,” the Doctor said. “I really wasn’t expecting to see you again.”

“You know me,” River said. “I’m like a bad penny. Always turning up.”

“Why turn up here?” the Doctor asked. “Didn’t expect to find you in 21st century Cardiff.”

“It was only supposed to be a quick stop,” River said. “I was going to see if the rift here could recharge my vortex manipulator, but it seems to have completely broken it instead.”

“I can’t imagine you’ve been using that thing responsibly,” the Doctor said. “Might’ve overwhelmed it. You know, I have a friend in the area who might be able to fix it. Has a whole secret lab sort of setup around here somewhere.”

“That would be wonderful,” River said. 

“Only thing is,” the Doctor said, “he won’t tell me where.”

“Even better,” River said, her smile of a sort that Rose had long since associated with the beginning of an adventure. “Care to help me find him?”

“‘Course,” the Doctor said. “Rose, you coming?”

Rose looked from the Doctor to River, shifting uncomfortably. 

“Suppose I am,” she said. “Always good to see Jack, yeah?”

“Brilliant,” the Doctor said. “All right. We should probably start over by where we parked the TARDIS, after last time.”

“What happened last time?” River asked. 

“He heard the TARDIS and jumped on,” the Doctor said. “Not on the inside, mind. Rode the outside of the TARDIS all the way to the end of the universe.”

“And he won’t tell you where his secret lab is?” River asked. “How rude.”

“That’s what I said!” the Doctor exclaimed. 

It didn’t take them long to get back to the TARDIS. In her recent adventures, Rose had almost forgotten that the sign on the outside of the box was different from how it had been before, but River picked up on it immediately.

“Oh, you’ve redecorated,” she said, already halfway between the Doctor and the TARDIS. “Can I take a look?”

“If you want,” the Doctor said. “I think you’ll like this one.”

River bounded ahead. She didn’t have a key, but the door creaked open almost the minute her hand grazed the wood. It was that, more than anything else, that made Rose realize exactly how important River must have been to the Doctor-- if the TARDIS still opened for her, no questions asked, she must be special. 

“Doctor,” she said, before the Doctor could follow. “Do you want me to go so you can be alone?”

The Doctor turned to her with a quizzical expression.

“What do you mean?”

“If you want to catch up with River,” Rose said. 

“Oh, no, is this awkward?” the Doctor asked. “I’m sorry, Rose. I try so hard not to make things awkward, and then I do, every time.”

“No, I just mean-- she’s clearly important to you,” Rose said.

The Doctor hesitated for a moment.

“She is,” she said, “but she’s-- she’s not in my life anymore. My time with her is over, for the most part. We fix her vortex manipulator, and she goes on to more and more adventures with me. And I go on, and I never see her again. She doesn’t know it, but I was there when she regenerated into herself, and I uploaded her when she died. I can’t linger with the past. Not when there’s all this future to be getting on with. But you don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”

Rose reached for the Doctor’s hand, tangling their fingers together. Their eyes met, and Rose saw that deep sadness in the Doctor’s expression, the echoes of so many lost loves. Rose had been one of those, once, and there was always the chance she would be again someday. She remembered her Doctor, in the parallel world, watching him grow old. He had counseled her through that, in a lot of ways, having gone through the reverse so many times before-- she had often seen the same sad look in his eyes. 

“I’m with you,” Rose said. 

The door to the TARDIS banged open.

“Are you two coming?” River’s voice called.

The Doctor’s expression bounced back to excited, and she dropped Rose’s hand as she ran to the TARDIS, coat flapping. Rose followed more slowly. 

Ten minutes later, the three of them in frenetic collaboration had rigged up a cobbled-together machine that would hopefully detect nearby traces of Artron energy, thereby directing them to Jack, who was surely absolutely bathed in Artron energy at this point. And sure enough, the minute they stepped out of the TARDIS, the machine began to glow and vibrate in River’s hands, more intense if she stepped in one direction, less intense if she stepped in another.

“Suppose we’ll have our answer soon, then,” the Doctor said. 

River began following the machine, the Doctor and Rose tagging along more out of a vague sense of obligation than anything else. (Well, and they had used one of the Doctor’s earrings in the machine, and she was intent on getting it back when they were done.) They went up and down the darkening streets until the machine was practically jumping out of River’s hands, and then Rose lost track of what was happening for a moment as River bumped into a pedestrian, sending the machine to the ground, where it shattered, its parts skittering across the pavement. 

The Doctor immediately dove for the bits of metal on the sidewalk, shouting, “My earring!” River was in the process of standing up. Rose, however, was fully upright, and therefore in a position to notice that it was, indeed, Captain Jack Harkness who River had just run into. 

“Rose,” he said, eyebrows raised. “And the Doctor. What brings you here?”

“Just passing through,” Rose said. “Recharging the TARDIS.”

The Doctor had found her earring and was trying to put it in one-handed as she said, “We weren’t even going to look you up until we ran into River.”

“River?” Jack asked. He turned to River, who was far more composed than anyone who had just fallen to the ground had the right to be. “I suppose that’s you.” Jack held out a hand. “Captain Jack Harkness.”

“Pleasure,” River said, extending her own hand in a delicate handshake. “I hear you’re good at fixing things.”

“I’ve been known to do a little repair, on occasion,” Jack said.

“I think Jack’s finally met his match,” Rose whispered to the Doctor.

“This is brilliant,” the Doctor agreed. “Come on, let’s go before they notice.”

Rose took the Doctor’s hand again, and they ducked into a side street, both suppressing laughter. As they got further away, Rose said, still giggling, “I can’t believe your wife flirts the same way as Jack.”

“To be fair,” the Doctor said, “I was very attracted to Jack, back in the day.”

“Ha!” Rose exclaimed. “I knew it! You didn’t hide your feelings well, you know. Even then.”

“Nah,” the Doctor said. “You just know me better than anyone should.”

Rose grinned.

“Good thing you love me,” she teased.

“Good thing indeed,” the Doctor answered.

They walked back to the hotel in comfortable silence. They passed Yaz, Cleis, and Ryan in the lobby doing some sort of puzzle together, and then they rode up in the elevator, which the Doctor was positively delighted about-- “I love elevators,” she told Rose. “Taking us up and down so we don’t have to walk. Absolutely brilliant.” 

As they walked in, Rose realized how unexpectedly tired she was. She, or she-as-Rosie, had had a good night’s sleep the night before, and usually Rose with her new Time Lord constitution wouldn’t be tired yet, but now all she wanted was to get into pajamas and curl up underneath some blankets.

Fortunately, the Doctor seemed to be on the same schedule-- “Chameleon Arch,” she explained, after changing into a fluffy dinosaur onesie. “It’s exhausting, turning back from human. Even we’ve got to sleep after.” 

“Or use sleeping as an excuse for a dinosaur costume,” Rose observed, already sitting up in bed. 

“Oi, don’t mock the dinosaur!” the Doctor exclaimed. “He’s friendly!”

Rose just smiled, looking at the Doctor’s indignant face and messy hair above the green fleece of the onesie. Even like this, she was beautiful, Rose thought, and then she said it out loud, because she hadn’t lived a hundred years and jumped from universe to universe not to say what she thought.

“Thanks,” the Doctor said. “You are, too, for the record. Beautiful, I mean.” She was rocking on the balls of her feet, and Rose rolled her eyes.

“Come on, Doctor,” she said. “Get in bed.”

“It’s not weird to share?” the Doctor asked.

“We’ve shared before,” Rose said.

“You met my wife,” the Doctor said. 

“And she knows what I am to you,” Rose said, “and I know what she is to you, and we’ve all come to terms with that.”

“I’m no good at relationships,” the Doctor said. “I don’t know what you’re expecting. Humans are all-- different. And I wasn’t good with dating even when the Time Lords existed properly.”

“Good thing none of us involved are human, then,” Rose said. “Come on, Doctor. You said yourself you won’t even see her anymore, remember?”

“I suppose so,” the Doctor said.

“So stop being such an idiot and come sleep,” Rose said. 

“Fine,” the Doctor said, and she made a show of getting in bed. Once there, though, she immediately cuddled up to Rose, and Rose smiled, running a hand through the Doctor’s hair. Some part of her was perfectly content, in that moment, surrounded by soft bedding, the Doctor’s warmth against her, the sweet smell of the Doctor’s hair coming towards her as she tangled her fingers in it. 

“Are we girlfriends now?” the Doctor asked suddenly, her voice muffled against Rose’s pajama shirt.

Rose’s hand stilled in the Doctor’s hair.

“How do you mean?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” the Doctor said, lifting her head a bit. “Must be a bit of Jane still in me. I keep thinking about human relationships.”

“We can be girlfriends,” Rose said. “I don’t know if it’s really the sort of word that works for us. Very human.”

“Suppose so,” the Doctor said. “Don’t really need a name, anyway, I suppose. Girlfriend is as good as anything, though.”

“Fair enough,” Rose said. “We can say that. If people ask. I don’t think they will.”

“Never know,” the Doctor said, letting her head drop back down. Rose kissed the top of her head, and then reached over and turned off the lamp with a smile. This was a nice way to fall asleep, she thought to herself. Maybe the only nice way to fall asleep, with the Doctor in her arms, snoring softly in dinosaur pajamas. 

It didn’t take her long to drift off, a faint smile on her face. She dreamed of nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follow me on tumblr at regenderate and my creative blog burclay! 
> 
> also i have a lot of thoughts about jack and river being friends i know i didn't do enough with river in this chapter but i might bring that duo back
> 
> also EDIT: i just realized that i said something about jack not telling the doctor where he lives even though they literally went to his house earlier in the fic. this is getting to a point where it's long enough that i'm losing track of the plot. i'm going to try and compile some sort of document for myself so this sort of thing doesn't happen as often but. we'll see. i'm honestly just here to have a good time and nothing else so things can be a bit inaccurate and we can all still have fun with it


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my goodness it's been a while hasn't it! it was the end of the school year so i had two tech weeks in a row and then i had other stuff going on... but i've had a whole week since then so i've written a lot of fanfiction.

Three days in Cardiff passed quickly, although nothing was ever quick enough for the Doctor. Rose was content to go to museums and shop; the Doctor went back and forth between wandering with Rose and the others and checking up on the TARDIS as if she didn’t know down to the second when it would be ready. Still, eventually she and Rose and the others were standing in the console room, gathered around the brightly glowing central column.

“Any minute now,” the Doctor said. Rose could practically feel the Doctor’s impatient energy vibrating in the space between them; the Doctor had leaned almost all the way over the console, her gaze fixed on the crystal.

Finally, the crystal pulsed, there was a beep from the TARDIS and a bit of a telepathic prod, and the Doctor jumped back and immediately crashed to the ground in her excitement. Rose, laughing, offered a hand, which the Doctor took, pulling herself to her feet already halfway through a sentence.

“Right,” she was saying. “Brilliant. So, where do we go next? Suppose we should probably pay a visit to ancient Greece, just so Sappho knows we didn’t run away with her daughter forever. By the way, Cleis, did you want to stick around? Or we could always do a couple of quick trips on the way. Eventually we’ll have to go back to Sheffield, clean up a bit, but that can happen anytime. Time travel, you know.”

Cleis was looking at Yaz in confusion. Yaz gave her an encouraging nod, eyebrows raised, and Cleis turned back to the Doctor.

“I’d like to stay,” she said. “If that’s okay.”

“You have to understand it’s dangerous,” the Doctor warned, her face suddenly serious. “You have to be sure.”

Rose could see the sadness in her eyes, suddenly, and remembered the rage that had been in the eyes of the Doctor she had first traveled with. The rage had settled into sadness, and that had been an improvement at the time, but… it had been a thousand years since then, and Rose’s heart hurt to think of the Doctor in pain for all that time.

“I’m sure,” Cleis said. “I mean, I’ve talked about it with Yaz.”

“Brilliant,” the Doctor said. “Still. We should probably pop back and see your mum, yeah?”

Cleis grinned.

“She’ll never believe any of this,” she said.

“You’d be surprised what people’ll believe,” Rose said.

“Like my mum believes I’ve never been time traveling and the Doctor’s just a weird friend who comes to tea too often,” Yaz added.

“She really still believes that?” Ryan asked.

“She pretends to,” Yaz said. “Now I’ve been home a few months it’s easier. Don’t know what’ll happen after we start traveling again. I’ll have to tell her eventually.” She shrugged. “Anyway. Greece?”

“Lesbos, Greece, Earth,” the Doctor agreed, racing to the console. “Oh, I’ve missed you,” she exclaimed in the general direction of the central column. Rose felt a warmth spread through her— she couldn’t tell if it was from the TARDIS’s response to the Doctor, telepathically projected, or her own affection. She followed the Doctor more slowly, smiling a little. She’d missed the TARDIS too, after all.

Moments later, they were on Lesbos. Rose had figured out her time senses well enough to know that it was roughly the same time they had been in before; the idea was confirmed when she looked at the TARDIS monitors.

“Day after we left,” she said. “Not bad.”

The Doctor patted the console fondly.

“She’s looking out for us,” she said.

Rose heard Cleis quietly asking Yaz, “Is the TARDIS a person?”

“No,” Yaz replied. “But it has a mind of its own.”

“Good way of putting it,” the Doctor said. “Now, shall we?”

Without waiting for an answer, she strode to the door and flung it open. Rose followed, Yaz and Cleis close on her heels, and Ryan and Graham trailing behind. As she stepped out of the TARDIS, Rose saw Sappho striding towards them, her expression the fierce anger Rose had once associated with her own mother, seeing the TARDIS after some time away. Before anyone had the chance to say even a single word, Sappho pulled her hand back and slapped the Doctor across the face.

“Where have you taken my daughter?” she demanded, still in the Doctor’s face. “With your strange box that’s not a ship?”

The Doctor’s mouth was open in shock. Rose had to suppress a laugh.

“You slapped me!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Came all the way back here and got slapped by Sappho!”

“Never mind that!” Sappho cried. “What did you do with my daughter?”

Cleis stepped out from behind Rose.

“I’m right here,” she said. “And I’m fine.”

Sappho instantly pulled Cleis into a hug with the same ferocity she had used to slap the Doctor.

The Doctor, of course, was still looking shocked, and now Rose couldn’t hold back her laughter any longer— she laughed, and the Doctor turned that shocked expression on her, now, which meant of course Rose laughed harder.

“She slapped you!” she exclaimed, out of breath. “Just like my mum!”

“Oi!” the Doctor said. “Don’t go bringing your mum into this! One angry mum is enough.”

She looked back at Sappho, who had separated from Cleis and was now glaring at the Doctor again.

“And I didn’t mean to take your daughter,” she said. “It was an accident, but look, she’s all back now.”

“She’s right,” Cleis admitted. “I ran into her box, and by the time she noticed me it was too late.”

Sappho seemed to relax at that.

“But I’m going to keep traveling with her,” Cleis added. “Mum, she can travel in time.”  
Rose expected Sappho’s anger to come back, or at least disbelief, but instead Sappho nodded.

“I suppose I knew you’d leave eventually,” she said. She looked at the Doctor. “Mind, you’d better keep my daughter safe.”

“I do my best,” the Doctor said.

Sappho paused. She glanced at the TARDIS.

“Does it really travel in time?” she asked.

“It really does,” Cleis said. “Mum, I’m going to see so much.”

“You could come, too, if you like,” the Doctor said. “For a trip or too.”

Sappho shook her head.

“I’ve never had an adventuring spirit,” she said. “Much prefer a quiet life. Stay for our evening meal, though?”

The Doctor refused the meal, which was behavior Rose associated with the version of the Doctor she had first traveled with, years and years ago. It didn’t seem so normal anymore, but no one raised comment— Cleis went, and Yaz and Graham and Ryan followed, and Rose decided to stay back with the Doctor.

“Don’t want you being all alone,” she said as the others left.

“I’m fine,” the Doctor said. “You can go if you want.” But she wasn’t making eye contact with Rose.

“No,” Rose said, “We’re going to go back into the TARDIS, and I’m going to make tea, and you’re going to tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong!” the Doctor protested. “Just don’t want to do tea, is all.”

Rose rolled her eyes and pulled the Doctor through the TARDIS doors. She dragged the Doctor all the way to the kitchen, where she put the teakettle on and the Doctor stood in the doorway, looking entirely put out.

“Really, Rose, you should have gone with them,” she said.

“So you could sulk in peace?” Rose asked, eyebrows raised. “And don’t say you’re not domestic, because Yaz told me you have tea at hers every time you go back.”

“That’s different,” the Doctor protested.

“How’s it different?” Rose asked. “Yaz drags you?”

The Doctor opened her mouth, then closed it.

“No,” she said feebly. “I want to go.”

“And you don’t want to go now?” Rose asked. She was still standing in front of the stove, meters away from the Doctor.

“I do,” the Doctor said. “I just can’t.”

“Why not?”

The Doctor shrugged. Her face was tense, and Rose thought she could see tears in her eyes.

“Oh, Doctor,” she said, and she crossed the distance between them and pulled the Doctor into a tight hug. The Doctor hugged her back, clung to her, and Rose buried her face in the Doctor’s shoulder. “Is it because of Cleis?” she asked.

“I can’t get attached to families,” the Doctor said, her voice muffled by Rose’s shirt. “Yaz’s was an accident. I didn’t think I’d ever see her again. Was just going for tea because I didn’t want to say goodbye.”

The kettle whistled, and Rose let the Doctor go. There was a single tear track on her face, and Rose got the idea that it was all the Doctor could do to stop more tears from flowing.

Rose moved back towards the stove. She got down two mugs and two bags of chamomile tea— somehow, despite all the adventures she’d been on, all the exotic things she’d tried, the Doctor’s favorite had always been chamomile. Rose filled the mugs and brought them to the table, and the Doctor sat down with her.

“It’s okay to be attached,” Rose finally said. “Really.”

The Doctor shook her head.

“I get attached,” she said, “and then I just lose them. I can’t do that. Once I’ve been in their houses, eaten their food— I care about them, Rose. And caring hurts.”  
“That’s why you never came to tea at my flat?” Rose asked. “Trying to stay as distant as possible?”

The Doctor nodded.

“Didn’t work,” she added.

Rose laughed.

“Really didn’t,” she agreed.

“It’s just the difference between having friends and becoming part of a family, though,” the Doctor said. “I bring someone into my TARDIS, I’m going to care about them. But if I go into their house, their mums start poking at me, their siblings ask me invasive questions, and soon enough, I’m one of them. I love Yaz’s family, but they’ve gotten much too close. And I know I’ll lose them someday.”

“Nothing lasts forever,” Rose said, her voice quiet. “But why not enjoy it now?”

“It echoes,” the Doctor explained. “I know I’ll lose them, and I’m already sad about it. A big ache in my heart for something that hasn’t happened yet.”

Rose reached over and took one of the Doctor’s hands.

“We’ll be a family, then, yeah? I’ll live at least as long as you, now.”

“Doesn’t mean I won’t lose you,” the Doctor said, looking down at where their hands met.

Suddenly, Rose felt a sharp sort of protective instinct, almost. It was her love intensified, all mixed up with a need to make sure the Doctor was never hurt again.

“I promise,” she said. “I promise you won’t.”

“You can’t promise that,” the Doctor said.

“I can try,” Rose said. She squeezed the Doctor’s hand. “Anyway, if you don’t get involved in things ‘cause you’re scared, you’ll never do anything.”

“Suppose not,” the Doctor said. “I’ve been trying, you know. To love more freely.”

“You’re doing brilliantly,” Rose said. “I don’t think you would have said any of what you just told me when we first met.”

“I don’t think so either,” the Doctor admitted. “There’s one good thing, then. I’ve got better at emotions.”

Rose pulled her chair closer to the Doctor’s and rested her head on the Doctor’s shoulder.

“And thank goodness for that,” she said.

They sat like that until the TARDIS beeped, alerting them to the others returning. With a groan, Rose stood up, and the Doctor followed, still holding Rose’s hand. They walked back to the console room, where Ryan, Graham, Yaz, and Cleis were all waiting.

“How was tea?” the Doctor asked. “Sappho slap anybody else?”

“No slapping,” Graham said.

“Fortunately for me,” Yaz said. “As I think I would’ve been the target.”

Cleis was grinning, and she said, “You two should’ve come. Everyone was asking where you went, Rose.”

Rose shrugged.

“Maybe next time,” she said. “Right, Doctor?”

“Maybe,” the Doctor said. “Right, then. Cleis, you’ll need a room, yeah? I’ll get one generated for you.” She went to the console and poked at the buttons. “Brilliant,” she said. “Should be right across from Yaz.” She turned to look at the others. “Sorry, I’ve lost track. Is now a time for sleep? Do you need to sleep now?”

“It _has_ been about twelve hours,” Graham said. “Certainly a time for winding down, if not sleep.”

“No more adventures today, then,” the Doctor said. “But we’ll think of somewhere brilliant to go tomorrow.”

“Anyone up for a movie night?” Ryan asked. “Still trying to show Cleis humanity’s greatest hits.”

“What’s on that list?” Rose asked.

“Greatest hits,” Ryan said. “Star Wars. Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Stuff like that. Next up was going to be Black Panther, but I’m open to discussion.”

“That’s not as bad as I thought,” Yaz said.

Ryan looked at her.

“Are you doubting my taste in movies?”

“I’m always doubting your taste,” Yaz said. “Remember that song you used to summon those spiders?”

“That was good,” Ryan insisted.

“Whatever,” Yaz said. “I’m in for a movie night if that’s what’s playing.”

“I said I was open to discussion,” Ryan muttered.

“I said I liked your choice!” Yaz protested.

“Now, now,” Graham said. “No fighting.”

“Well, _I_ like your taste in music,” Cleis said.

“See?” Ryan asked. “Your girlfriend likes my music.”

“Well, that’d just be her one flaw, then,” Yaz said.

They made their way to the game room, where the TARDIS kept her television, bantering the whole way. It took almost ten minutes for everyone to sit down— Ryan kept sprawling his whole body across the couch until finally Yaz gave up and just sat directly on him. Rose, who had immediately claimed an armchair, looked on in amusement until the Doctor decided to sit directly on her, and when the ensuing tussle had finished, they were wedged next to each other, one of Rose’s thighs overlapping with one of the Doctor’s, the Doctor’s arms around her waist.

Rose looked up. Everyone was looking at them. Somehow, they had all managed to settle on the sofa and other armchair— Graham had the chair, and Cleis and Ryan had the sofa with Yaz laid out across them, her head in Cleis’s lap, her feet in Ryan’s.

“You know I have to get up to start the movie,” Ryan told Yaz.

Just then, the TV sparked to life, and an opening shot splashed across the screen.

“Thanks, TARDIS,” Yaz said.

“Never seen this one before,” Rose remarked. “Missed a lot in the parallel universe.”

“It’s brilliant,” Ryan promised.

It was brilliant— the movie, and also the experience of watching it with the Doctor, pressed against her; Ryan, pointing out interesting background imagery and reciting trivia; Yaz, refusing to move for anyone; Cleis, laughing at Yaz; and Graham, rolling his eyes at it all.

“This is just like New Lesotho,” the Doctor said halfway through. “’Course, took them a bit longer for some of the tech, given vibranium isn’t exactly real. Got lots of other interesting metals, though.”

“Quiet down,” Ryan said, as if he hadn’t been talking through the whole movie.

“I’m just saying,” the Doctor persisted. “It’s a brilliant planet. At the height of technological advancement in its day, too.”

“Guess we’ve found someplace to go tomorrow, then,” Rose said, and kissed the Doctor on the cheek. A silly grin immediately sprung to the Doctor’s face, and Rose couldn’t help but smile back before resting her head back on the Doctor’s shoulder.   
Rose had been skeptical when Ryan had said it was a superhero movie, but she actually enjoyed it— there wasn’t much gratuitous violence, and the plot held up. When it ended, there was some lazy conversation about the movie, but one by one, everyone excused themselves to bed until it was just Rose and the Doctor, curled up in that armchair, one of the Doctor’s hands running through Rose’s hair, Rose’s fingers dancing along the back of the Doctor’s hand.

“Been a while,” the Doctor said, after minutes of silence.

“What do you mean?” Rose asked.

“Since I’ve had a family,” the Doctor said.

“So you’ll admit it,” Rose said. “You got attached.”

“Suppose I’d better stop pretending,” the Doctor said.

“Knew you could do it,” Rose said. She felt a cozy sort of warm, not tired, really, but comfortable, content— it had been a while since she had had any sort of family, too. She had forgotten what it was like.

The Doctor moved the hand that was in Rose’s hair down to pull her close by the waist; Rose turned herself towards the Doctor, leaning up for a kiss.

“It’s not so bad,” the Doctor said. “Being attached.”

“Not so bad,” Rose repeated, a smile curling across her face.

They didn’t move from those spots— eventually, Rose did fall asleep, nodding off against the Doctor’s neck, and she woke up hours later to the Doctor humming softly against her hair.

“What’s that?” she murmured, still half-asleep.

“It’s silly,” the Doctor said, her voice soft to match Rose’s.

“Not silly,” Rose said. “Pretty.”

“It’s an old song,” the Doctor said. “From Gallifrey. A lullaby.”

“Not silly at all,” Rose said.

“I don’t usually sing in front of people,” the Doctor said. “Feels weird.”

“Just means you need practice,” Rose said. “You can sing to me forever, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Really?” the Doctor asked.

“’Course,” Rose said. “It’s nice.” She hesitated. “The you in the other universe— human you— he used to sing,” she said. “He’d forgotten most of the Gallifreyan songs, though. Said they weren’t meant for a human mind.”

“Never thought of that,” the Doctor said. “He’s right, though, Gallifreyans always need to complicate things. Some of their music involves literally plucking at time.”

Rose shivered.

“Sounds dangerous,” she said.

“Not really,” the Doctor said. “You don’t pluck enough to do any damage. Still. Not exactly something a human can handle.”

They talked about music and Gallifrey and the other universe and families and home for hours, until the TARDIS beeped to tell them the others were up. Hand in hand, they walked to the console room, where Yaz and Cleis were waiting.

“Ready for another adventure?” the Doctor asked.

Rose didn’t have to look at Yaz and Cleis to know the answer was yes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is for firepos who is the one who suggested the sappho slapping the doctor. thank you so much
> 
> i feel like parts of this chapter are awkward due to me feeling like i needed to write extra to make it long enough but the extra writing i did was all fluff so. you're welcome

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr at regenderate and my creative blog at burclay!


End file.
